Mo Farah hints he won’t be at Commonwealth Games

 
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Mo Farah today cast doubt on whether he would compete in next year’s Commonwealth Games, insisting he is only focused on the London Marathon at the moment.

The Olympic and world 5,000m and 10,000m champion plans to do a full track season in 2014 but has no idea how his body will hold up to the rigours of his first competitive 26-mile experience.

Asked about his Commonwealth Games plans, he told BBC 5 Live: “I don’t know. It just depends how I come off that marathon.

“My aim is to do the London Marathon and that is what I am fully focused on. It’s a bonus if I do it, but it is not on my list.”

The absence of Farah — Britain’s star male athlete of the London Games — would be a huge blow to the Commonwealth Games.

Asked what it would take for him to appear in Glasgow, three months after the London run, he added: “I’ve got to come off the marathon healthy and then I’d make a decision. You’ve just got to choose one race.”

UK Athletics performance director Neil Black has hinted Farah planned to do the 5,000m in both Glasgow and also the European Championships in Zurich in August.

But Farah’s agent Ricky Simms insisted that, while Farah planned a full track season despite his road‑racing ambitions, he had set no goals with coach Alberto Salazar past London.

“They are definitely on the list of options but no decision has been made whether to do the Commonwealth Games and Europeans,” said Simms. “Mo will do a track season but we’re not looking that far ahead at present. Mo’s never confirmed anything beyond the London Marathon for next season.”

Farah completed half of the marathon course this year and there has been talk he could become the first athlete to run the distance in under two hours. The record is 2hr 3min 23sec and Farah said: “It’s pretty crazy to say that in my first ever marathon I’m going to shave three minutes off it.

“It’s slowly been broken before, from 2:04 to 2:03. I don’t think [two hours] is going to be broken in the next 10 years or even beyond that, maybe even 100 years, because if you think about it, it’s really difficult.

“The rumours actually started because my sponsors Nike are working on a show called the Sub Two-Hour. They keep working on that, and that’s how the rumours started. I never actually said it.”

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