Victory at the inaugural Djibouti International Half-Marathon gives Olympic champion a successful start to Olympic year

Mo Farah got his 2021 racing schedule off to a winning start after taking victory in the inaugural Djibouti International Half-Marathon.

Racing for the first time since winning the Antrim Coast Half Marathon six months ago, the 10-time global gold medallist had returned to the country from which he moved to Britain at the age of eight.

Now 37, Farah had been keen to test himself again following a training block at his camp in Ethiopia, explaining in an exclusive interview with AW prior to the race how he was “fired up” for a year in which his main focus will be the defence of his 10,000m Olympic title in Tokyo.

In temperatures of 28 degrees centigrade, he got the win he was looking for, clocking a time of 63:07 to take the victory by just four seconds.

READ MORE: Exclusive: Mo Farah “fired up” ahead of half-marathon test

His training partner Bashir Abdi, who set a world 20km record in the same Brussels track event where Farah broke the one-hour mark in September, was his main challenger and followed him home almost a minute clear of third-placed local athlete Moumin Bouh.

Sweden’s David Nilsson (64:06) and the Djiboutian duo of Jamal Dirieh (64:22) and Mouhyadin Abdi Waisss completed the top six.