Thames Valley Harriers' Mohamud Aadan is keen to make up for lost time as he plans to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics, writes Ziad Chaudry.

In his first competitive appearance for nearly 13 months, the 33-year-old Team GB hopeful finished a respectable eighth at the Big Half around the streets of Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Lewisham and Greenwich on Sunday.

While a lot of attention was on hometown hero Sir Mo Farah, in his last race in the capital before ending his glittering career at the AJ Bell Great North Run this Sunday (September 10), the race to grab the three British men’s team places for next month’s inaugural World Road Running Championships in Riga, Latvia was hotly contested.

Aldershot, Farnham & District AC’s Jack Rowe claimed victory in a personal best 1:01.08, followed by Mahamed Mahamed of Southampton AC (1:01.16) and Stirling-based Central AC’s Andrew Butchart (1:02.43).

Star-attraction Farah crossed the finish line at the iconic Cutty Sark in Greenwich in fourth in 1:02.43 with Aadan eighth in 1:03.58.

Aadan’s last race on August 15 last year saw him clock 2:17.34 for 30th place at the 2022 European Championships in Munich, Germany. And despite receiving a knock a week before Sunday’s 13.1-mile race he was keen to put on a good performance.

“I expected to do better than that,” he said. “I didn’t race for the whole year because of injuries so I’m just coming back slowly. I tried my best, it was a hard race. The boys went for it from the gun so they went all the way, it was tough. 

“Coming into this race I was basically doing normal training but not anything special, so it was tough. You kind of expect to test yourself at lesser distances before going into this kind of racing.”

Aadan is used to the huge top-billing attention which good friend Farah receives but, like fellow elite competitors, is fully focused on completing his own tasks.

“We’ve been racing with Farah for all these years and we all know how it is in terms of the media coverage he is receiving and the fans coming out in huge numbers to watch one of the best ever,” added Aadan.

"We don’t actually mind as we just want to get on with the racing. We just want to do our best running alongside him and that’s what we always want to do.”

Aadan will continue his bid to reach Paris 2024 at the Principality Cardiff Half Marathon on October 1.

“I will do Cardiff next then I’ll go out for training camp, maybe do something like 10k then go for Valencia then marathon,” he said.

“But my goal is to qualify for Paris."