In scenes reminiscent of his Olympic 5,000m and 10,000m victories, decibel levels were reaching fever pitch as he kicked ahead with a lap-and-a-half to go, and it seemed that Farah and his distinctive "Mo-bot" celebration was outdoing even Usain Bolt in inspiring crowd support.

The Jamaican did typically have the final word when anchoring his Racers Track Club quartet to victory in the 4 x 100m relay.

But it was Farah the 60,000 crowd paid the most homage too, nearly a year after his 10,000m victory here was one of three British victories in the Olympic Stadium on a day dubbed "Super Saturday" as Team GB won a record six gold medals on a single day across London 2012. 

He won in an outdoor personal best of 7min 36.85sec and, if there was any disappointment that he had missed out on Dave Moocroft's 31-year-old UK record by more than three seconds, than the crowd did not show it as they gave him a standing ovation.

"It's great to be back and win here again, I have so many nice memories of racing here." said Farah.

"There's so many people here to support us.

"I wanted to make them proud and I'm in great shape so it's going well for [the International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships in] Moscow."


In comparison to last night's rock concert style vibe, this second day had initially adopted a more relaxed atmosphere with spectators - braced for the forecast heavy rain and thunderstorms - arriving armed with umbrellas along with their Olympic memorabilia from 12 months ago.

As today marked the first anniversary of Danny Boyle's widely-acclaimed Opening Ceremony and, while there was no Queen parachuting out of aeroplanes or Mr Bean playing Chariots of Fire, there was a definite spirit of the occasion from the moment you arrived at Stratford with the same level of excitement.

As the sun shone a glimpse of Britain's Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis was all that was needed to raise the decibel levels inside the Stadium.

Suffering from the effects of a niggling Achilles injury, sightings of Ennis have been few and far between this summer, and rather predictably she was some way short of her best in her first 100m hurdles race of 2013 in fourth place as Sally Pierson won in 12.65sec.

Ennis also competed in the long jump but finished last with an effort of 6.16 metres in a competition won by teammate - and perhaps future rival - Katarina Johnson-Thompson who leapt 6.46m to snatch victory with the last effort of the competition.

Johnson-Thompson, a 20-year-old from Liverpool, had last year broken Ennis' British junior heptathlon record and is surely one to watch for Rio 2016.


As during the Games however, the support was not reserved merely for British athletes, and one of the loudest cheers of the day came when France's Renaud Lavillenie cleared a Diamond League Record of 6.02 metres to win the pole vault before three failures at a world record height of 6.16m.

None of the efforts came close to breaking Sergey Bubka's 20-year-old mark but how the crowd cheered the Frenchman. 

Augustine Choge produced another of the performances of the day to win his second Emsley Carr mile, a historic invitational race whose history dates back to 1953, with the Kenyan winning in a time of 3min 50.01sec to follow a similar victory in 2010.

Appropriately, Choge received his prize from Sebastian Coe, the winner in 1977 and 1983 and the former chairman of London 2012.

The women's sprints provided much excitement as, by the time America's Alysson Felix, winner of three Olympic gold medals here last year, ran 22.41 to win the 200m, Nigeria's Blessing Okagbare had already run two African records to win the 100m in 10.79, and fourth placed Shelly Ann Fraser-Price earlier ran even quicker - a world leading 10.77 - in her heat.

America's Allyson Felix looked comfortable in a winning return to London over 200m, one of three events that she won gold medals in at last year's Olympics










Britain's Christine Ohuruogu also went one better than she had done at London 2012 to cross the line first in the 400m by beating America's Francena McCorory in 50.00. 

Not that Ohuruogu, the Beijing 2008 gold medallist, who lives just a short distance from here, was allowing herself to get carried away.

"I didn't want to lose on home ground," said Ohuruogu.

"A win's a win, but this is not where it ends for us and we will be doing a bit of tinkering and see where we go from there."

It is a question that athletics too must be asking itself.

After a torrid month following the failed drugs tests of sprinters Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell, the sport again showed that it has the capacity to excite and surprise. 

London 2012 had left it on a massive high.

Now it must hope that a year on that it can get back to that position.

This was a good start. 

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