Mo Farah and Samuel L Jackson will seem strange bedfellows in the same sentence.
It’s true the marvel from Hounslow is a star of the track, and the other a star of the screen, but it goes a bit further than that.
After Farah retained his Olympic 10,000 metres title in breathtaking style in the early hours, the man from Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained tweeted his admiration.
And guess what? Both train in west London.
When Farah’s in England, he gets stuck into Richmond Park not a million miles from where the schoolboy first caught the attention at Isleworth & Syon School and Feltham Community College.
When also in England, and South Kensington in particular, Jackson utilises the services of a one-on-one exclusive gym in Jubilee Place.
GWL has seen him emerge from a workout, but nothing as strenuous as the effort it took Farah to get around 25 laps in the early hours of the morning.
For a start, he was toppled to the superfast blue track half way through the race, only to dust himself off and turn on a 55 second last lap where he spent as much time checking who was claiming silver and bronze as sprinting for the line.
He said: “It is never an easy thing when you know you have got a target on your back.
“When I fell down, for a moment I thought my race was over, my dream was over but then I managed to dig deep.
“I promised my daughter Rhianna I was going to get her a medal and I was thinking ‘I can’t let her down’. That is all I was thinking about – her. That is why I was quite emotional at the end because it almost went.
“As each lap went down, I was getting more and more confident. With the bell, I was thinking ‘Just don’t waste too much energy’.
“I didn’t know what some of the others could do so I just wanted to make sure I had something at the end.
“I think I am more of a guy that wins medals rather than run fast times.
“For me, one of the things that keeps me going is winning medals for my country and making my nation proud.”
