Sir Mo Farah is one of the most recognisable athletes in Great Britain but no one actually knows the real Mohamed Farah.
In an astonishing revelation during a BBC documentary - The Real Mo Farah - the four-time Olympic gold medallist opened up about the secret he had been running away from for over 30 years.
Sir Mo, 39, is the most successful British track athlete in modern Olympics history and his 10 global titles - four Olympic gold medals and six World Championships titles - also make him the most successful male track distance runner in history.
However, his success is a far cry from his upbringing in Somaliland. In the documentary, he reveals that he was born Hussein Abdi Kahin and grew up during the Somali civil war.
This is just the beginning of a complex and difficult start to life for Farah, who admitted he was smuggled into the UK by traffickers as an illegal immigrant at the age of nine.
He was brought to Britain instead of the real Mohamed Farah, who still lives in Somalia and has never been to the UK.
Mo says: "I feel like I’ve always had that private thing where I could never be me and tell what’s really happened."
His dad, Abdi, was killed by shrapnel from a bazooka while tending his cattle during the civil war when he was only four years of age.
As a result, his mum, Aisha, sent him and his twin brother Hassan to live with an uncle in neighbouring Djibouti on the Horn of Africa.
Aisha had spent years not knowing Mo had been taken to live in the UK. The pair got back in touch after she sent him her phone number when he was a teenager.
He added: "Despite what I’ve said in the past, my parents never lived in the UK. When I was four, my dad was killed in the civil war. As a family we were torn apart."
Mo was brought to the UK to work in domestic servitude for a family with younger children using false documents, with the woman who brought him in pretending to be his mum.
He realised he had taken someone’s place when the man meeting them at the airport wondered where his son was.
Two years later, Mo was allowed to attend Feltham Community College in south west London. There, he eventually trusted PE teacher Alan Watkinson and he opened up about his secret as his running career started to flourish.
Social services were involved and Mo got a lucky break – Kinsi, the mum of a Somali school friend, agreed to take him in.
He lived with the family for seven years. It turned out Kinsi was the sister of the man who met Mo at the airport – the real Mohamed Farah’s dad.
During the documentary, she calls her nephew. Sir Mo tells him: "I want to say thank you. I used your name. I came here as a child and it’s been hard."
The real Mo says: "It’s OK, you’re still my brother."
* The Real Mo Farah, BBC1, 9pm, Wednesday 13 July.
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