Mo Farah feels no pressure before his bid to win the Chicago Marathon

Briton believes his old sparring partner Galen Rupp is a ‘different animal’ over the longer distance

One evening, when Mo Farah was in the Swiss mountains preparing for Chicago marathon, he came across a pack of dogs glaring at him. And then, as he hesitated, the smallest dog pounced. “It was about 6pm and I was running round the lake in St Moritz,” he says. “I paused as there were these dogs on the trail off a lead and I was thinking the owner was going to stop them. But he let one of them go and then chomp – I had to get injections and there was blood.”

Farah winces at the memory. “I carried on but I was so mad that when I went back to the house I was like ‘a dog’s just bitten me, let’s go find the guy and call the police’,” he says. “But I couldn’t find him.”