World Indoor Athletics Championships: Britain's world champion Mo Farah is bundled out of the medals

On the topsy-turviest of afternoons for Mo Farah, Britain’s finest distance runner could not even leave Istanbul with the consolation of a bronze medal after learning his first harsh lesson of Olympic year at the world indoor championships.

While all around him were rightly crying “no panic” afterwards, the world champion just looked quite deflated when, seeking to add the indoor 3,000m crown to his burgeoning collection, he was jostled into fourth place in a compelling, physical 15-lap dust up.

Even when the track judge later disqualified the bronze medallist Edwin Cheruiyot Soi for obstruction, Farah’s satisfaction at joining the British medal fest lasted approximately 10 minutes before an appeal from the Kenyan team saw Soi reinstated.

Farah, who had confessed to “feeling a little better” after learning briefly that he had at least landed a medal, was then left to miserably ponder all the trackside politicking in the Atakoy Arena before IAAF vice president Seb Coe broke the news to him. “It feels very weird,” Farah could only muse.

While his coach Alberto Salazar and even his conqueror, gold medallist Bernard Lagat were shrugging that Farah would be back firing over the distances that really count — 5,000m and 10,000m — this summer in the event that really counts, it felt comforting that it could not appease a serialwinner. “I don’t like losing,” said Farah.

Third or fourth, it does not really matter to him now. When you have begun to scale his peaks of excellence this past 12 months, no wonder you begin to be hard on yourself.