Mo Farah fancied for Olympic 5,000m but Gebremeskel is poised
Published:Mo Farah is the 7/4 favourite to win the Olympic 5,000m this evening – but he won’t have things all his own way.
Farah has already got one gold to his name in this Games, winning the 10,000m in spectacular style last Saturday and is expected to claim yet another British medal this Saturday.
However, this will be a far tougher task for the 29-year-old as he faces a top class field many of whom won’t have faced the gruelling 10,000m races that Farah has.
The Briton admitted himself that his legs felt heavy during his qualifying run and he will be hard pressed to be as rested and ready as he needs to be for yet another assault at a gold medal.
More worrying perhaps than his own exertions is the form of Dejen Gebremeskel who heads into this race as the fastest qualifier.
His time of 13:15.15 was just over 10 seconds quicker than Farah’s qualifying time although admittedly Farah comfortably made the final and wasn’t forced to be at his best.
It’s their personal bests though that paint a better picture of how difficult Farah may find things on the track though.
While Farah’s is currently the 12:53.11 he set in Monaco last summer, Gebremeskel can look back on a time of 12:46.81 – nearly seven second quicker than the Briton.
Farah did see of Gebremeskel at the World Athletics Championships last year though and with the vocal support of the British crowd to help him around – something that he admitted was a huge help as he kicked on for the 10,000m crown – this looks set to be a tight race.
Whilst the winner looks likely to come from the aforementioned runners, there are also some decent odds available for Bernard Lagat who can be backed at 8/1 he finished second in last year’s World Championships ahead of Gebremeskel and may be worth looking into for a longer-odds punt.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
