British Olympian 'racially abused' at German airport

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON

British Olympic gold medalist and the U.K.’s most successful-ever distance runner Sir Mo Farah has complained of “racial harassment” at a German airport.

A video uploaded by Farah on social media platforms shows he was pushed and dragged by yet to be identified German airport security personnel.

"Sad to see racial harassment in this day and age. 2018...!!!!," Farah said.

The British athlete repeated the racial harassment claim in the video, saying: "Just in the airport here, got harassed again, again, again.”

"For wearing a hoodie and a jumper, Germany airport, Germany airport, oh my God,” Farah is seen complaining.

"The guy's touching me up like crazy.”

"Pure harassment, pure, pure harassment. You don't need to push me," he warns the security personnel, the video also showed.

In the video, which went viral on British social media accounts shortly after it was posted, a guard is seen guiding him towards his gate, and another is seen pushing him after he asked “not to be touched”.

Farah is seen being repeatedly pushed and shoved in the rest of the video, and one of the guards said he did “not care” when Farah warned the video was live on social media.

"The way you get treated. Did you see that guys? Unbelievable," Farah commented in the video.

A spokesperson confirmed to British daily The Telegraph that Farah “felt subjected to racially-motivated unfair treatment”.

"This afternoon, there was an incident at a German airport whilst Mo was traveling back to his training camp in Ethiopia,” it said.

"Mo felt that the incident was racially motivated and that he was unfairly treated by the airport security staff."

The statement did not disclose the information about which airport the incident took place.

Mohamed Muktar Jama “Mo” Farah is one of the top British athletes with 10 world and Olympic gold medals.

He is the 2012 and 2016 Olympic gold medalist in both the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters and is the second athlete in modern Olympic Games history to have done so.

Farah was born in Somalia to a Muslim family but later he settled in the U.K.

In 2017, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in New Year Honours after his extraordinary success.