Mo Farah, the first British track and field athlete to win four Olympic gold medals, has said in a startling revelation for his country and sport that he was brought to the UK as a child under a false name.
“Most people know me as Mo Farah but it’s not my name or it doesn’t reflect reality,” he said in a BBC documentary due to be released on Wednesday.
“The real story is that I was born Hussein Abdi Kahin in Somaliland, north of Somalia. Despite what I’ve said in the past, my parents have never lived in the UK,” Farah said in clips from the documentary released on Monday.
Farah, 39, previously said he came to the UK with his parents as a refugee.
He said he was jeopardizing his citizenship by sharing his story and spoke to an attorney in the film about what the disclosure could mean for his future.
Solicitor, Alan Briddock, said Farah was unlikely to lose his citizenship for being trafficked as a child and 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 another child’s name, Mohamed Farah. He thought he would stay with relatives but was forced into domestic servitude.
“I had all my relatives contact details and when we got to her house the lady took it from me and ripped it up right in front of me and put it in the bin and at that moment I knew I was in trouble. ” he said.
“If I wanted food in my mouth, my job was to take care of these kids, shower them, cook for them, clean for them,” Farah 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, while enrolled in school, Farah told his physical education teacher, Alan Watkinson, about his true identity. He was placed in the care of a friend’s mother.
According to the BBC, Farah obtained British citizenship under the name Mohamed Farah in July 2000 with the help of Watkinson. He later became one of Britain’s greatest sporting heroes.
Farah, a long-distance runner, won two gold medals in the 5,000m and 10,000m at the 2012 London Olympics. He repeated successfully four years later at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics as champion in both races, winning gold despite a dramatic fall midway through the 10,000.
Farah was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017.
Since briefly retiring from athletics in 2017, he has competed in major marathons and set a national record after winning the 2018 Chicago Marathon with a time of 2 hours, 5 minutes and 11 seconds.
Farah recently announced that he will be running this year’s London Marathon on October 2nd, his first marathon since 2019.