BRITON ANDY VERNON accused compatriot Mo Farah of telling him to “f*** off” after the double Olympic champion’s 5000m win at the Diamond League meet in Lausanne.
Farah, who had been absent from competition for six weeks following a documentary that made doping claims against his coach Alberto Salazar, clinched the victory ahead of Ethiopian Yomif Kejelcha before apparently becoming embroiled in controversy.
As Vernon went to make peace with Farah following an ugly Twitter row earlier this year, the race winner is alleged to have rejected the approach.
“I went to shake his hand and he turned his back on me and told me to f*** off,” Vernon, who finished 15th, said.
“I wanted to bury the hatchet, I’m going up to Font-Romeu [Farah's base] in a few days’ time and I just wanted to end it.
“To not even be a sportsman there and shake my hand I think is pretty disgraceful, to be honest. Like in the armed forces, you salute the rank, not the person sometimes.
“I wanted to congratulate the performance. Whether we’re friends or not, I can appreciate a good performance but I get that reaction.
“With all the bad publicity he’s getting at the moment I would have thought he would try to actually make a good name for himself again but by doing that it’s not too good for him.”
Farah was not implicated in the BBC Panorama programme about Salazar’s coaching methods and has welcomed the subsequent UK Anti-Doping and US Anti-Doping Agency investigations.
