Dave Moorcroft has questioned the length of the Zurich track after Mo Farah relieved him of his British record over 5,000m. Speaking from his holiday home in the Maldives, the ex-Coventry star said that he “didn’t even watch” the event that took place on Thursday evening. “My first question afterwards was: ‘where did he do it?’” said a clearly vexed Moorcroft, “when I was told Zurich, I didn’t care- that simply doesn’t count.”
The 13:00.41 5k man looked tired at the hastily arranged press conference and was quick to poor cold water on anyone who was seen to be overly enthusiastic about Farah’s achievement. “Answer me this: did he win the race?” stormed Moorcroft, “no, he didn’t. So how can he say that he is the best Brit of all time? Answer me that- how?” After dismissing an animated Phil Jones of the BBC (who asked Moorcroft how he felt the crowd could have impacted Farah’s run), the ex-British record holder once again turned his ire on Farah. “What’s he done anyway?” he asked, “take it from me: that track is short. Go out and measure it. There’s no way this can happen.”
Whilst standing by his view that he “hadn’t lost a thing”, Moorcroft revealed that Farah had been less than magnanimous in victory. “He sent me a nasty Facebook message,” blubbed Moorcroft, “he said that breaking 13 minutes was easy and he couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. It’s really disappointing when someone treats you like that. He may have run a half decent short 5k, but that is no reason to delete and block me on MySpace.”
For his part, Farah has said that he is “disappointed” with Moorcroft’s attitude. “Jealousy,” thundered the Newham and Essex Beagle, “that’s what it is: jealousy. That’s why he had to go on MySpace- that and Tariku [Bekele] told me to keep that for sub-13 minute athletes only.” Farah went on: “how can he say that the track is short? What planet is he on? Get over it mate- I’m number one around here now.”
Officials at the IAAF refused to go into detail on the spat but did state that they “stood by” their timing systems, which were “of the standard expected at almost all BMC meetings.”