Mo Farah's heartwarming love against the odds with wife he hid tragic past from
This year Sir Mo Farah will run what he says will be his final London Marathon ever.
The Olympic hero said the event is sure to be an 'emotional one' as he'll take part in his last hurrah in front of adoring fans and of course his long-supporting wife Tania.
Tania has been a familiar face at the sportsman's finish lines for years - supporting him at some of the world's most high-profile stages.
Last year the couple shed new light on their romance when Mo bravely shared the heartbreaking truth about his childhood that he had kept secret for years despite his overwhelming fame.
Mo told fans he was trafficked into the UK as a child to work as a servant and revealed he had kept his story a secret from wife Tania for years.
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The record-breaking runner was just nine years old when he was brought to the UK under a false identity and forced to work for a couple and look after their young children.
His name isn't Mo Farah - he was actually born Hussein Abdi Kahin in Somaliland - but he flew to England in the place of the real Mo Farah, who still lives in Somalia.
Speaking in BBC documentary, The Real Mo Farah, he said: "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."
Sir Mo met wife Tania at school, but she says she only learned the full truth as they prepared to marry in 2010.
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Mo Farah and his wife Tania met when they were just school children (Instagram/taniafarah86)She says she was "gobsmacked". Tania added that the big question – still unanswered by the end of the documentary – is why he was switched for the real Mohamed.
The couple first met at school in Feltham, west London, when Tania was 11 and he was 12. He was friends with her brother and her first memory of him is as a boy with bleached-blonde hair.
They became like 'brother and sister', living around the corner from each other in Hounslow and attending the same athletics club where Tania was a sprinter while Mo preferred long distance.
Mo said: “Tania was one person I’d talk to, we were really good friends, I’d go round her house, all the time I’d be on the phone to her.”
Mo shared his tragic past with Tania just before their weddingHe was 18 by the time he plucked up the courage to ask her out - but she wasn't interested.
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“When she said ‘no’, I was like, okay, whatever, and then I lived my life, went to uni, went crazy, and then realised I still had feelings for her.”
They lost contact for almost eight years before Mo spotted Tania on Facebook and sent her a friend request.
By that point, Tania had a two-year-old daughter, Rihanna, and said that when she and Mo finally met up, she was shocked to find that 'sparks flew'.
But Mo, who by that point had carved out a successful sports career, initally took her to McDonalds for their dates because he didn't want her to know how well off he was.
“I just wanted to test her,” he explained.
But Mo and Tania were the real deal and one night while watching EastEnders, he popped the question.
“It was in the living room, we were watching TV, and I’m like, ‘I want to marry this girl’, and I just asked her if she’d marry me,” he revealed.
Mo with twin daughters Aisha and Amani, daughter Rihanna and his wife Tania (Getty Images Europe)“She was like, ‘Are you serious?’”
They tied the knot in Richmond on April 3, 2010, with the guest list featuring big name athletes including Paula Radcliffe, Steve Cram and Jo Pavey.
At home, the supportive mother-of-four shoulders the bulk of the childcare, allowing her husband to spend up to six months a year away training and perfecting his game.
And when the I'm A Celebrity star hits the track, she's waiting at the finish line with their children Rhianna, Amani, Aisha and Hussein.
“It’s a good thing I have Tania. If I didn’t have the family and everything, I wouldn’t be where I am," he told Piers Morgan.
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