Mo Farah is the most successful British athlete ever, with gold medals for the 10,000 and 5000 metres at two Olympics and ten global titles in all. He is retiring now, though may move onto marathon running.
Born 23 March 1983 in Somalia, he came to the UK aged 8 with his father and family leaving his sick twin brother behind who wasn’t fit to travel. In recent years he has trained in Portland, Oregon where he has a house, with coach Alberto Salazar. Doping allegations against Salazar have never been proved and have left Farah bitter about the media damaging his legacy.
The switchover won’t be easy for him, if he retires, since his life for the past fifteen years has been ‘sleep, eat’ train’. And it’s not certain he’ll make the transition to marathons.
He has an Aries Sun square Neptune (very common amongst top sportsmen that Neptune); with his Sun trine a lucky Uranus Jupiter in Sagittarius and inconjunct an obsessive Saturn in Scorpio conjunct Pluto, so perseverance is what he thrives on. On top of that he has Mars in Aries opposition Pluto which has enabled him to undergo the most brutal training and challenging lifestyle to reach and stay at the top in distance running.
Tr Pluto will pick up the frustrating, blocked square to his Mars from early 2018 for two years; with tr Saturn also square his Sun and conjunct his Neptune from this December through 2018, so fairly discouraging. Plus some accident-prone Uranus transits to two Mars midpoints in early 2018. He will get a confidence lift from tr Pluto trine his Jupiter/Node midpoint in 2018/19. But by 2019 he picks up Solar Arc Saturn Pluto starting to cross his optimistic and lucky Uranus Jupiter for several years which will damp his enthusiasm considerably.
Usain Bolt, the sprinter, being a Leo and a showman, may fare better in his retirement since he’ll no doubt embark on the celebrity circuit. With Mars Neptune conjunct in his chart he thrives on publicity and glamour. It still won’t be easy since winding down from a more-than-full-time way of life will take a major adjustment. But he looks less stressed about it than Mo Farah.