Clark’s season best ahead of Olympics trials

Zoey Clark set herself up for the Olympic trials at the end of the month by setting a season’s best time in a mixed 400m race at Grangemouth stadium.

The Aberdeen AAC sprinter clocked 51.79secs when finishing third behind James McClafferty (Law and District), who won in 50.32secs, and runner-up Ewan Purves (Edinburgh AC), 50.61.

Clark now sits sixth in this season’s UK rankings and the time edges her closer to the Olympic qualifying mark of 51.35secs.

She said: “I’m very happy with that. It was very windy, but having the men to run with helped me put together a good tactical race.”

Meanwhile, Aberdeen AAC’s Naomi Lang slashed a fraction over 15 secs from her previous best 5,000m time when finishing third in a British Milers Club meeting at Watford.

The Edinburgh University student recorded 16min 09.16secs, while Newbury’s Izzy Fry won in 15:49.25.

Lang’s clubmate Zoe Bates achieved a personal best 1500m time of 4min 26.25sec when finishing third in her race. She has now slashed more than eight seconds off her time this year. Highgate’s Hannah Viner won in 4:24.89.

Hannah Cameron set a season’s best 800m time of 2:07.31 when finishing third in her heat. There was also a season’s best for Stornoway’s Euan Campbell, who clocked 1:55.36 for fifth position in his 800m.

Aberdeen AAC’s Michael Ferguson ran his quickest 1500m time of the year when recording 3:47.88 for fifth behind Alex Melloy (Cambridge and Coleridge), who won a hotly-contested race in 3:46.48.

Zoey Clark was happy.