Clark to get to work in South Africa

Sprinter Zoey Clark heads off to the South African university town of Stellenbosch early in the new year to begin her countdown towards the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

The 25-year-old Aberdeen AAC runner is looking forward to enjoying some warm sunshine to give her winter training a welcome boost.

She said: “I’ll be there for three weeks and the weather should be fine. I went to Florida last year and it snowed, so hopefully I won’t get a repeat of that.”

The 25-year-old hopes to secure one of three Great Britain team places available in the individual 400m for Tokyo as well as featuring in the women’s and mixed 4x400m relay teams.

Clark is well placed to fulfil her ambition, having been a key member of the highly successful GB relay squads over the past few seasons.

She picked up her fourth major senior championships medal in March when collecting 4x400m silver at the European indoors in Glasgow.

She also won World outdoor silver at London (2017), World indoor bronze at Birmingham (2018) and European outdoor bronze at Berlin (2018).

Despite that fine record, Clark is taking absolutely nothing for granted and knows there’s a lot of hard work to be done in her quest for selection.

She said: “The goal is to get an individual 400m place and I’m obviously keen to be involved in the relays again.

“But it will be difficult and selection is probably harder than it’s been before. The qualifying mark for the 400m is slightly faster than my personal best of 51.36secs, but I feel it’s achievable.

“Obviously I have run for the team quite a few times over the past few years, so I have cemented myself in the squad, but I’ll still have to show form.

“It will come down to the trials. If you want to be on the team you have to do well enough when it matters.”

Aberdeen AAC’s Zoey Clark is working towards Japan.