The Brit will move to the road after these championships and tried to ensure he would do so with 11 consecutive global titles under his belt at 5,000m and 10,000m.
A number of the field tried to break Farah throughout the race and it was Ethiopia’s Muktar Edris who produced a stunning final lap to claim gold.
Farah produced a masterful performance on the opening night of the championships to secure what was still Team GB’s only gold by the time he took to the track for his second final.
The Brit did not arrive with the fastest 5,000m time of the year but his race-craft remains second to almost none. Two of the Ethiopians, Edris and Selemon Barega, had both been faster over 5k than Farah this year as had Joshua Kiprui Cheptegei of Uganda.
But it was Olympic silver medalist Paul Chelimo who set the pace in the early stages, knowing the best chance of his beating Farah was to run the finish out of him in the early stages.
However, the American was given little help as the field froze behind him.
Farah ushered British team-mate Andrew Butchart to the front to control the pace before Edris overtook him and initially he failed to produce the pace required to undo the reigning champion.
But when Yomif Kejelcha led them out with 400m to go, Edris followed him through.
Farah gritted his teeth on the back straight but looked a beaten man and even when he dipped to seal silver, he was rocking and rolling with pain that has been unfamiliar in his career.
Farah had arrived at the championships having refused to talk to print reporters because of constant questioning over doping.
Yet more documents leaked by the Russian hacking group known as Fancy Bears which this time list Farah’s name among dozens of athletes flagged by the International Association of Athletics Federations for suspicious biological passports.
One notation on a doping test the British runner gave on November 23 2015 states: “Likely doping; Passport suspicious: further data is required.”
A document dated some six months later appears to clear Farah though, stating he is “now flagged as normal”.
And the distance runner lost patience with the follow-up questions a month out from the championships.
“I am sick of repeating myself. You guys just make something out of nothing,” Farah said in July.
“I will never, ever fail a drugs test. I work hard at what I do and I just carry on enjoying what I do.
“What I do day in and day out, there are no secrets to what I do. My life is not as easy as people think – it is hard work, about grafting.
“I wish you guys would understand it a bit more and write down the facts.”
In the end, Farah did the talking with his feet and shouted louder than anyone ever could have done, even with a final silver round his neck.
