All that was missing was a bag of fish and chips as Britain’s modern day Tough of the Track hobbled into the press room an hour-and-a-half after his latest heroics.

Questions may remain regarding his coach Alberto Salazar, while he has not accrued world records to go with his medals, but Mo Farah’s Tupperesque performance delighted the traditionalists as he fought off bullying opponents to claim his sixth World Championship gold medal to go with his haul of four Olympic golds.

There was no sign of significant damage as he celebrated with his family after the race, fooled around with two of his beaten rivals on the podium then bounded off the top of it, yet from what we saw in the media room afterwards there must be a doubt over whether we will see him on a track again, given the state of those skinny yet extraordinarily powerful legs late on Friday night, a badly swollen looking knee wrapped in blood-stained bandages.

While always remaining upbeat, Farah has developed a testy relationship with the press, those in his adopted homeland particularly, but on the evidence presented there could be little doubt about the genuineness of the reason he cut his media commitments short, explaining that he was off to see a doctor and may require stitches before beginning his bid to add another 5000 metres gold to this latest 10,000 metre triumph.

The man born in Somalia, but who has considered himself a Londoner for more than quarter of a century had literally fought off the attentions of the best men that the East African nations could offer, most particularly Kenya’s Paul Kipngetich Tanui on the final lap, Britain’s greatest distance runner recovering twice when being badly clipped for by not the first time in the race.

“The guys gave it to me. They chucked everything at it. It’s one of the toughest races of my life,” he said. “I had to dig deep. With 1600 metres to go I had to think ‘don’t let the gap grow’. I made sure I could cover every move and just try to be strong and then one lap to go I nearly get tripped twice. That was hard and I just had to be mentally strong and think ‘I didn’t work for nothing’.

“I just had to stay strong, believe in myself and realise that I didn’t work for nothing and I’m not losing in my home town. In the middle of the race, I didn’t think I was going to lose but I did think it was really tough. I’ve got a few cuts and bruises but I just need to recover and get ready for the 5000m.

“There is no place like London and no place like home. I love London and I love the people. I get emotional talking about it but I owe it to the people of London and the people of Great Britain.”

For all that support, Farah was clearly aware of having been very isolated on the track when targeted by his rivals.

“It was all about how do you beat Mo. You had the Kenyans, the Ethiopians, the Ugandans all working as a team against me. Fair play to them, they worked it hard,” said Farah, going along with the notion that this may have been his greatest performance.

But perhaps most intimidating of all for bronze medallist Tanui, Uganda’s silver medallist Joshua Kiprui Cheptegei, Ethiopia’s Abadi Hadis, who had run the fast 10K of the year until Friday, and their compatriots who joined them in filling the rest of the top seven slots, Farah took the responsibility for his stumbles upon himself.

“At that point I’ve got such long strides you’ve seen me, I’ve fallen down before in races, so I got caught twice and at that point I was just trying to stand up and think: ‘I can’t go down, I can’t go down.’ I think that’s when I hurt my leg so I’m going to see the doctors now to take care of it, a few stitches maybe,” he said, still smiling broadly even though he was unable to bend his knee properly as he left the room.

Perhaps, then, we have already witnessed Farah’s last great effort on the track, but if he does make it to the start line in the 5000 metres heats on Wednesday, he clearly intends to continue to do everything on his own terms.