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By Derek Hunter at the NIA, Birmingham Last updated at 8:00 PM on 19th February 2011

Mo Farah bade farewell to Britain in glorious style yesterday when he smashed not only a 29-year-old British 5,000 metres record, but the European one too.

The European 5,000 and 10,000 metres champion announced on the eve of the Aviva Grand Prix in Birmingham that he is basing himself and his family in Oregon for the 18 months before the 2012 Olympic Games. 

Sign of the times: Mo Farah after breaking the 5000m records

He will be coached there by American running legend Alberto Salazar. The records were his leaving presents.

Ironically, it was his future training partner in American Galen Rupp who pushed him all the way. But he paid greater tribute to the sell-out crowd in the NIA, telling spectators: 'Thank you, guys. You were massively important.'

He has one last commitment to Britain before he moves, a bid to defend his 3,000 metres title at the European indoor championships in Paris next month. Nobody now will be betting against him. Nick Rose's British record of 13:21.27 has stood since before Farah was born in Somalia in 1983. But since Farah smashed Dave Moorcroft's 28-year-old outdoor British record last year, it was on borrowed time. Farah beat it by more than 10 seconds in 13:10.60 and the year-old European record by 0.53sec.

The two-year programme Phillips Idowu conceived to take him to the top of the Olympic podium in his own backyard in Stratford next year had lift-off in his first competition of the schedule.   Idowu, who dreams of becoming the first man ever to win all six major indoor and outdoor titles, hopped, stepped and jumped to 17.57 metres to comfortably beat 2004 Olympic champion Christian Olsson.

The only man this year to jump further, and only by seven centimetres, is world indoor champion Teddy Tamgho, the Frenchman in training for the European indoor championships in Paris.

Eye on the clock: Mo Farah crosses the finishing line

Idowu is missing that championships but will give Olsson a return match in Stockholm on Tuesday. 'My best-ever indoor season opener, world class,' said Idowu.

What a difference a week made to Kelly Sotherton. Last Sunday she was crying tears of joy after winning her first national track title in her first outing as a 400 metres runner, yesterday she finished sixth and last - exposing her tactical naivety over the tight two laps.

Former Commonwealth heptathlon champion Sotherton won the national title by forcing the pace, leading from gun to finish, but this time she seemed anchored to her starting blocks. She was last every step of the way in a time of 53.70sec, slower than her week-old debut and almost two seconds behind Jamaican winner Novlene Williams-Mills.

'I got my tactics really wrong but I'm not upset. You can't be upset every time you have a bad race,' said Sotherton, 34, who switched to the 400 when doctors told her to quit the heptathlon because of a prolapsed disc in her spine.

'I felt stronger and better than last week. It's all a learning experience and everybody ran well apart from me. But it's not like the heptathlon. When I get it wrong I can put it right the next week, not six months later.'

She will have that chance in Paris but only in the relay because last week's time did not qualify her for the individual event. 'The relay was always the plan,' she said.

Two more Britons will go to Paris as No 1 in Europe this year - Trinidad- born, Bedford resident Nigel Levine, 21, who won the 400 metres in 46.17sec and Helen Clitheroe, 37, who finished fourth in a 3,000 metres won in the year's fastest time by Ethiopian Sentayehu Ejigu.

Clitheroe's time of 8:39.81 is two seconds faster than any other European has run.

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Labels: breaks, daily, Farah, quits, records