Organisers have confirmed that Mo Farah will line up for the 2019 London Marathon on 28 April, extending his move from the track to the road after a strong debut in the event.
The announcement came on 20 November 2018. Farah, the four-time Olympic 5,000m and 10,000m champion, finished third in this year’s race and clocked two hours, six minutes and 21 seconds, setting a new British record and surpassing Steve Jones’ mark that had stood for 33 years.
The Somali-born Londoner has already shown he can compete at the top level over the marathon distance. In October, he won the Chicago Marathon in a European record and has said he wants to race at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Farah’s move away from the track followed his sixth world title in London in 2017, when he won the 10,000m and then announced his retirement from track racing to focus on marathons. That same year, he collected the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.
His career record remains among the strongest in British athletics. Farah has won 10 Olympic and World gold medals, along with two silvers, during six years of dominance at major championships. He also claimed a record fifth straight Great North Run in September.
Elsewhere in athletics, Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith has been named on the five-strong shortlist for the 2018 IAAF Female Athlete of the Year award. The triple European champion is joined by Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas, Belgian heptathlete Nafissatou Thiam, Colombian triple jumper Caterine Ibarguen and Kenya’s Beatrice Chepkoech.
The award is due to be presented on 4 December in Monaco. Asher-Smith, who was 22 at the time, became the first British woman to win triple European Championship gold in August after taking the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay titles in Berlin. She also won 4x100m gold at the Commonwealth Games and took bronze in the 200m, which Miller-Uibo won.
