Mo Farah and wife's love against odds - school crush, rejection and chance reunion
I'm A Celebrity star Mo Farah and his wife Tania first met as school kids and were best friends before they lost touch for almost a decade
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Along with the Mobot, there's one constant at Mo Farah's record-breaking races, and that's his wife Tania.
At home, the supportive mother-of-four shoulders the bulk of the childcare, allowing her husband to spend up to six months a year away training and perfecting his game.
And when the I'm A Celebrity star hits the track, she's waiting at the finish line with their children Rhianna, Amani, Aisha and Hussein.
Without Tania, Mo, 37, has no doubt that he wouldn't have achieved half of what he has.
“It’s a good thing I have Tania. If I didn’t have the family and everything, I wouldn’t be where I am," he told Piers Morgan.
The couple first met at school in Feltham, west London, when Tania was 11 and he was 12. He was friends with her brother and her first memory of him is as a boy with bleached-blonde hair.
They became like 'brother and sister', living around the corner from each other in Hounslow and attending the same athletics club where Tania was a sprinter while Mo preferred long distance.
Mo said: “Tania was one person I’d talk to, we were really good friends, I’d go round her house, all the time I’d be on the phone to her.”
He was 18 by the time he plucked up the courage to ask her out - but she wasn't interested.
“When she said ‘no’, I was like, okay, whatever, and then I lived my life, went to uni, went crazy, and then realised I still had feelings for her.”
They lost contact for almost eight years before Mo spotted Tania on Facebook and sent her a friend request.
By that point, Tania had a two-year-old daughter, Rihanna, and said that when she and Mo finally met up, she was shocked to find that 'sparks flew'.
But Mo, who by that point had carved out a successful sports career, initally took her to McDonalds for their dates because he didn't want her to know how well off he was.
“I just wanted to test her,” he explained.
But Mo and Tania were the real deal and one night while watching EastEnders, he popped the quesion.
“It was in the living room, we were watching TV, and I’m like, ‘I want to marry this girl’, and I just asked her if she’d marry me,” he revealed.
“She was like, ‘Are you serious?’”
They tied the knot in Richmond on April 3, 2010, with the guest list featuring big name athletes including Paula Radcliffe, Steve Cram and Jo Pavey.
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