# Mo Farah (Hussein Abdi Kahin)

> Mo Farah, born Hussein Abdi Kahin in 1983: four Olympic and six world titles, knighted in 2017, and his 2022 account of being trafficked as a child.

Source page: https://calankii.com/en/people/mo-farah/
Last checked: 2026-11-12
Publisher: Calankii (https://calankii.com)

## Who is he?

Sir Mo Farah is a British former long-distance runner, born in Somalia. He won four Olympic and six world championship gold medals, the most global titles of any male track distance runner ([Wikipedia, Mo Farah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_Farah)). He is the most successful British track athlete in Olympic history (same source).

## A childhood under another name

He was born Hussein Abdi Kahin on 23 March 1983 ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_Farah)). In a 2022 BBC documentary he said his father was killed in the civil war when he was four. At about nine, a woman flew him from Djibouti to London with false papers under the name of another child, Mohamed Farah, and he was made to work as a domestic servant ([CBS News, July 2022](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/mo-farah-olympic-star-reveals-to-bbc-he-was-trafficked-to-uk-from-africa)). He kept the name and later became a British citizen. The Home Office said no action would be taken against him ([CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/mo-farah-olympic-star-reveals-to-bbc-he-was-trafficked-to-uk-from-africa)).

At first he was not allowed to go to school. At 11 or 12 he joined Feltham Community College, where a PE teacher saw his talent ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_Farah)). He joined Hounslow athletics club, and later Newham and Essex Beagles (same source). His mother and two brothers live on a farm in [Somaliland](/en/states/somaliland-1991-to-2026/) (same source).

## Titles

- **Olympics:** gold in the 5,000 m and 10,000 m at London 2012, and again at Rio 2016. He was only the second man, after Lasse Virén, to win both at back-to-back Games ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_Farah)).
- **World Championships:** the distance double in 2013 and 2015, and 10,000 m gold in 2011 and 2017 (same source). From 2011 to 2017 he won ten global finals in a row.
- **Road:** he won the 2018 Chicago Marathon in a European record of 2:05:11, and holds the world record for the one-hour run (same source).

He was made a CBE in 2013 and knighted in 2017 for services to athletics ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_Farah)).

## Giving back

After a visit to Somalia in 2011 he launched the Mo Farah Foundation to help people in the Horn of Africa ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_Farah)).

## In short

A runner who arrived in Britain as a child and won four Olympic gold medals. See [sport in Somalia](/en/society/sport-in-somalia/) and [Somalis in London](/en/diaspora/london/).

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