Athletics

Evening Standard

Perfect vision: Mo Farah, during winter training at high altitude in Iten, Kenya, now knows what sacrifices have to be made to be a success. Image courtesy of Evening Standard

Disney World fulfils many children’s fantasies but for Mo Farah it gave him a new dream and one which he went on to realise far beyond expectation.

Farah can rightly claim to have resurrected British endurance running and last July became the country’s first European 10,000metres champion.

But, as a child, Farah longed to play on the wing for Arsenal until UK Athletics sent the 15-year-old and several other young prospects to Orlando for a two-week training camp.

Their stay included a visit to Disney World and that transformed his life.

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Evening Standard

There is one thing Phillips Idowu cannot explain: the s in his first name which makes it sound more like a surname than a Christian name. “Ask my father,” he says. “I don’t know.”

That may remain a mystery but Idowu has become a major name in athletics thanks to his PE teachers at Raine’s Foundation School in East London, who decided that his dream of wanting to follow in Michael Jordan’s footsteps into the NBA was totally unrealistic.

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Daily Telegraph

A SMALL American flag is tucked into the letterbox of Victor Conte’s Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO). It barely flutters and everything about this lab, now at the heart of the greatest drug scandal to hit sport, suggests there has been a sudden death.

The blinds are pulled down, there are no lights showing, no answer to knocks on the door and letters remain uncollected.

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