Olympics 2012: Crowd rises for the greatest athlete in the greatest Games

The greatest Olympics of all time came towards a perfect end last night (Saturday) as Mo Farah won his second gold of the London Games.

He was hailed as the greatest runner ever to compete for Britain, as yet another packed stadium crowd of 80,000 roared him across the line after 5,000 metres.

They had screamed and cheered and stood for Farah from the very beginning, when the slender man who was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, came walking into the stadium with his fellow competitors.

He came to Britain at the age of nine, unable to speak a word of English.

Now, Farah was wearing the running vest of Team GB, and there was no doubt of the intense, sincere affection felt for this 29-year-old man as he bounced on his heels on the starting line.

The roar was as loud as it had ever been, and in the cauldron of sound that has been the Olympic Stadium, that was remarkable. Spine tingling stuff, before the race had even started.

It felt like the centre of the world, with a billion people watching, as the athletics at London 2012 came to an end.

Farah began the race slowly. Mo was at the back. Could that be true? Elsewhere, there was a javelin final going on and men were trying to throw, but in the stadium it did not seem to matter.

As Farah and the pack passed each section of seats, the roar followed him like a Mexican wave of sound.

With ten laps to go, he suddenly moved from the back to the front, and the decibels soared.

Before the race there had been great excitement about whoever was in the Royal Box, but now the only person that any of the British spectators in this arena, or the millions watching at home in this country, cared about was Farah.

Seven days before this race, on Super Saturday, he had shared the glory with Jessica Ennis and others in Team GB as they won six golds. After that race, a reporter dared to ask if he would rather be running in the colours of Somalia. "Not at all mate," said Farah in his south London accent. "This is my country."

Now, he was holding the hopes of his nation in his metronomic heart, in a place where you could hardly hear yourself think, let alone speak.

The running pack was tight. There were fears that the others would gang up on him, crowd him out.

If any of his thousands of fans could have climbed down from the stands and formed a running guard then they would have done, gladly.

They would never have kept up. Even at slow speed, for them, these men were a blur. With a mile to run, Farah was in the middle. He moved up. The screams came again, harder, faster, higher.

Now, there was a real Mexican wave, only people were rising to their feet and lifting their hands in homage as Farah passed. This was a British wave - even the Jamaicans, waiting for their hero, Usain Bolt.

Even Bolt was swept away in the enthusiasm for Farah when he later won his own gold medal.

Bolt and his team-mates set a new world record for the 4x100m relay, but he celebrated by "doing the Mo" - putting his hands to his head to form a letter M.

The sprinter has been the star of the Games, but everyone in the stadium was British now. Back in the race, Farah was running second. Then, he was first. It was unbearable.

After all this way, 5,000m, it had come down to a sprint. He won. He darn well won, with his arms open, blowing a kiss.

I have seen rock bands play and been to political rallies with people who were fighting for their futures but I have never heard anything like the noise as he crossed the line, never felt anything like that.

Unbelievably, moments after he won, Farah was on his backside on the track, doing sit-ups - surely a joking tribute to Bolt, who did press-ups after his storming win in the 200m.

"What a race, what a man," said the man next to me, who was screaming his head off. We both were. He was from Estonia. It didn't matter.

Nothing else did but the little man on the track with a Union Flag, taking his lap of honour as Heroes by David Bowie played again, as it has so often for the British heroes of this British Games.

We have shown the world that we can laugh at ourselves, by opening the Olympics with the Queen appearing to jump out of a helicopter. We have shown that we can be welcoming and friendly, in our red and purple Games Maker uniforms. And we have shown ourselves that we can win.

There was such beautiful symbolism in the announcement that Farah had covered the last mile of the race in four minutes, as if it were his own tribute to Roger Bannister.

Lord Coe said the win would define Farah as "probably the greatest athlete we have produced".

The man who brought the Games to London, who was also one of the country's finest runners, said: "Mo is incredible. As an athlete, he is supreme. He knows this is his time. Nothing else matters much. He's got his family, and he's got his training structure.

"He runs and he sleeps and he runs and he sleeps. That's where you need to be, to do what he does so brilliantly well."

Farah went to his wife, Tania, in the crowd, and now we marvelled at how she had managed not to have the twin girls she is expecting, in this atmosphere.

Tania herself was breathless with excitement: "I am so pleased for him. He deserves it. He's worked so hard for this and I am really very proud of him."

His children will grow up in a nation that is so very proud of their father - who dedicated his twin medals to his twin daughters. "Those two medals are for my two girls. They can have one each," he said.

Other people were just as proud. David Cameron, the Prime Minster, said: "Mo Farah is an Olympic legend and a true British hero. We can all be proud of his extraordinary achievement."

Farah himself seemed in shock. His double gold in the 5,000m and 10,000m makes him the first British athlete to enter the pantheon of the world's all-time greats of distance runners.

"I'm just amazed. Two gold medals, who would have thought that? I am really excited," he said.

"It is unbelievable - I just want to thank everyone who has supported me, all my coaches from previous years and everyone who has been a part of my life.

"And I just want to thank my wife who is carrying twins. It's been just a long journey of grafting and grafting but anything is possible."

Boris Johnson, the London Mayor who was watching in the stadium, tweeted: "I thought last Super Saturday couldn't be topped but Mo_Farah winning his second Gold of the Games I will never forget. Awesome athlete!"

In the BBC studio, Denise Lewis and Colin Jackson, former athletes, were unable to contain themselves. Lewis jumped up and down as she watched Farah win and Jackson jumped to his feet.

Yesterday got off to a golden start for Team GB when Ed McKeever won the first ever 200m kayak sprint. They call him Bolt in a boat, for his power and speed, but the 28-year-old accountant from Somerset does not go in for jokes and showmanship. He just wins.

The Quiet Man, as those who know him better call him, powered into the lead at Eton Dorney and was never caught.

"I am so happy, I just kind of felt relief," he said after his storming victory. "It sounds stupid but it's not elation, more relief that I did in front of the home crowd."

Just an hour after Farah won gold, Britain's Luke Campbell has won the gold medal in the men's bantamweight - the first British gold at the weight for more than 100 years.

The 24-year-old from Hull, nicknamed Cool Hand Luke, saw off Joe Nevin of Ireland to win 14 to 11 on points.

As of last night, Team had 28 gold medals, and 61 medals in all, sitting in third place in the table behind the United States and China.

When the last race was won, the trucks were waiting to roll in to set up tonight's closing ceremony.

The organisers have promised a party to match the national mood, which has reached new heights of euphoria over the last fortnight. The show's creative director, Kim Gavin, said: "We want this to be the best after show party ever." Britain was certainly in the mood.

"The best thing about the Olympics has been the response of the British people," said Lord Coe.

"Everyone says how great our volunteers are, and the way people in general have got behind the Games has been mind-blowing. Britain is a good place to be at the moment."

Ticket sales for the Paralympics have rocketed, as the public enthusiasm for the Games has spilled over into its sister event.

Some have been bought by people whose primary motivation is to see the stadium; but others have found a new taste for the thrill of sporting contests they would never before have watched. We don't want it to end. Tonight, however, George Michael, Madness and the Spice Girls are all due to appear in a celebration of British music, as the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics begins at 9pm with a swirl of Elgar.

During the formalities, the president of the IOC, Jacques Rogge, is expected to thank London for staging the greatest ever Games.

Last night, in the Olympic stadium, Mo Farah ran the race of his life. When it was over, and the crowd collapsed exhausted back into its seats, both he and these impossibly intense London Games could rightly be acclaimed as the greatest.