Mo Farah, the first British track and field athlete to win four Olympic gold medals, said it was a stunning revelation for his country and the sport that he was flown to the United Kingdom under a false name as a child.
“Most people know me as Mo Farah, but that’s not my name, or it’s not,” he said in BBC documentary is scheduled to be released on Wednesday.
“The real story is that I was born in Somaliland, north of Somalia, as Hussein Abdi Kahin. ​​​​​​​Despite what I have said in the past, my parents have never lived in the UK,” Farah said in clips from the documentary, which were released on Monday.
Farah, 39, has previously said he came to Britain with his parents as a refugee.
He said he was putting his citizenship at risk by sharing his story and spoke to a lawyer in the film about what the disclosure could mean for his future.
Lawyer Alan Bridock said Farah was unlikely to lose his citizenship because he was trafficked as a child and had shared his story with the relevant authorities.
In the documentary, Farah said he was separated from his family after his father was killed during Somalia’s civil war. He was brought to the UK at the age of 9 with a woman under the name of another child, Mohammed Farah. He thought he would stay with his relatives, but he was forced to go to a home reception.
“I had all my relative’s contact details and as soon as we got to her house the lady took them off me and right in front of me tore them up and put them in the bin and that’s when I knew I was in trouble,” he said .
“When I felt like eating, my job was to take care of the kids, shower them, cook for them, clean for them,” Farrah said. “And she said, ‘If you ever want to see your family again, don’t say anything.’ If you say something, they will take you away.”
Years later, when he started school, Farah told his PE teacher Alan Watkinson about his true identity. He was handed over to the mother of a friend.
In July 2000, with Watkinson’s help, Farah obtained British citizenship under the name Mohammed Farah, according to the BBC. He became one of Britain’s greatest sporting heroes.
Farah, a distance runner, won two gold medals at the 2012 London Olympics in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters. Four years later, at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, he successfully repeated the victory in both races, winning gold despite a dramatic drop halfway through through 10,000.
In 2017, Queen Elizabeth II knighted Farah.
He competed in major marathons after a brief retirement from athletics in 2017 and set a national record after winning the 2018 Chicago Marathon in 2 hours, 5 minutes, 11 seconds.
Farah recently announced that he will run this year’s London Marathon on October 2nd, his first marathon since 2019.
