Britain’s Mo Farah wins his final 5000 meter track race

Four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah’s track career ended with a thrilling win in a sprawling 4-man finish to the 5,000 meters at the Weltklasse Diamond League meeting on Thursday.

Farah avenged his world championships loss by Muktar Edris, who fell over the finish line in third as just 0.13 seconds separated the first 4 men. They also shared the top-4 places in London 2 weeks ago.

Britain’s Farah doggedly held his lead to clock 13 minutes 6.05 seconds, 0.04 ahead of Paul Chelimo of the United States who pushed Farah and Edris across the line.
Chelimo, the worlds bronze medalist, had the same time as Edris who was already stumbling and then brought down his Ethiopia teammate Yomif Kejelcha in 4th.

“Oh man, I had to fight the last 200 meters there. I managed to hold them,” Farah said in a television interview. The 34-year-old Farah will switch to road races.

Ruth Jebet, the Kenyan-born 20-year-old runner who represents Bahrain, clocked the 2nd fastest time ever in the women’s 3,000 steeplechase. Jebet’s 8 minutes, 55.29 seconds was less than 3 seconds outside the record she set a year ago in Paris. World champion Emma Coburn of the U.S. was 4th.

Isaac Makwala was denied a chance to run his favored 400 event in London by illness, but the Botswana runner showed what track fans missed by clocking a 43.95 winning time on Thursday that was 0.03 faster than South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk’s gold-medal performance. Makwala then dropped to the track to do some pushups.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press.