Brussels (AFP)

Three years after opting for road races, British athletics star Mo Farah makes his comeback on the track in Brussels on Friday and wants to strike hard from the start by attacking Haile Gebreselassie's hour record .

The four-time Olympic champion (5,000 m and 10,000 m in 2012 and 2016) announced last year that he wanted to resume service on tartan with the goal of competing in the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 over 10,000 m.

The Olympics have certainly been postponed for a year due to coronavirus but the runner of Somali origin (37 years old) has remained true to his idea and he is passing through the Roi-Baudoin stadium to try to add a line of more to an already well supplied track record but where records are rare.

The goal will be to do better than the 21.285 km traveled by Ethiopian legend Haile Gebreselassie on June 27, 2007.

"I'm very excited, as a child, I missed the track a lot and it's great to be in a stadium again. Haile's record means a lot to me (...) It's great to be able to make history. It is not the Olympics but having a world record is something phenomenal ", declared the six-time world champion, who prepared in France at Font-Romeu and will notably be accompanied to Brussels by his training companion the Belgian Bashir Abdi, 2nd European performer of all time in marathon (2 h 4 min 49 in March in Tokyo).

Farah has not been idle since 2017 with a success in the Chicago marathon (2018) with the European record at the end (2 h 05 min 11 sec, time beaten by the Turkish Kaan Kigen Özbilen in 2019) and a 3rd place in London (2018).

However, he was never really able to dispute the superiority of the master of the distance Eliud Kipchoge.

The Briton will also find the bitumen over 42.195 km on October 4 in London, but only as the luxury hare of the Kenyan and the Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele, the two fastest marathoners in history whose duel makes us salivate in advance.

- Watch out for Duplantis -

With the marathon parenthesis almost closed, Farah now has her eyes riveted on Tokyo.

"It's a strange year, especially with the postponement of the Olympics, he explained. It may be a good thing for me, I will have time to go shopping, to gain confidence."

For Farah, it is also about reviving his image as his image was tarnished by the suspension for "incitement" to doping in September 2019 of Alberto Salazar, his mentor and trainer from 2011 to 2017.

Farah will not be the only one chasing a record in Brussels since the Dutch Sifan Hassan and the Kenyan Brigid Kosgei will try to imitate her in the ladies and go further than the Ethiopian Dire Tune Arissi (18.517 km in one hour in 2008) while the Kenyan Faith Kipyegon hopes to erase Russian Svetlana Masterkova from the shelves over 1.000 m (2 min 28 sec 98 in 1996).

Covid-19 requires, the evening will take place behind closed doors but the athletes will benefit, as in Oslo and Monaco this season, from a light signal projected at the edge of the track which will tell them exactly how fast to run to stay in the good tempo of records.

To spice up the meeting even more, the organizers can also count on the Swedish pole vault prodigy Armand Duplantis (20 years old).

The world record holder (6.18m, on February 15 indoors) is in brilliant form and has just achieved a top-notch performance with a jump to 6.07m on Wednesday in Lausanne, his best result in the open. air.

He could very well steal the show from Mo Farah.

© 2020 AFP