- Thursday, April 25, 2024
The student says he has been getting messages from all over the world after the UK athlete revealed he was not Mo Farah
By: Chandrashekar Bhat
As Britain’s most successful male athlete revealed recently that his original name was not Mo Farah and that he had been trafficked into the European nation when he was young, the natural question is where is the ‘real’ Mo Farah now.
Media reports said the ‘real’ Mo Farah is a student in Turkey and dreams to meet his namesake who won multiple Olympic gold medals.
The 39-year-old student who worked at a furniture shop said it would be “amazing” to go to the UK and meet the long-distance runner.
The Olympic great revealed in a BBC documentary recently that he had been illegally brought to the UK from Somalia with a false name. The 39-year-old who won double Olympic gold for his adopted country at the 2012 and 2016 Games, said his real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin.
It was reported that the ‘real’ Mo Farah was in Somaliland before it came to be known that he is in Turkey.
He said it has been crazy since the revelation.
“People have been calling me and messaging me – friends and media from all over the world,” he told The Sun.
It is understood he is studying at Istanbul Aydin University and is regarded as a “polite man”.
London’s Metropolitan Police said last week that they opened an investigation after the athlete revealed his past and said he had been forced to work in domestic servitude after entering the country aged eight or nine.
“No reports have been made to the MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) at this time. Specialist officers have opened an investigation and are currently assessing the available information,” the force said.
He was helped to obtain UK citizenship by his physical education teacher at school, Alan Watkinson, while still using the assumed name Mohamed Farah given to him by a woman who trafficked him to Britain.
He was assured by the British Government he would not be stripped of his citizenship with a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson describing him as “a sporting hero”.
