Battling injury comes with the territory for every elite athlete but even knowing that, Zoey Clark still didn’t expect to face the challenges she’s been confronted with throughout 2023.
Prior to this year, things had been going almost flawlessly for Clark.
She had established herself as one of Britain’s very best 400m runners, making her major championship debut in 2017 in impressive fashion by helping GB’s 4x400m relay team to silver at the World Championships.
Following that international debut, Clark added 6 more major championships medals, her most recent being Scotland’s relay bronze medal at last summer’s Commonwealth Games.
Such success is then, quite a contrast to the position she found herself in this year.
Having been in the shape of her life in recent years, Clark suddenly found herself not only unable to run but, in fact, unable to even stand up.
After much investigation, the cause of the problem was finally discovered but the timescale for recovery, if a full recovery was even possible, was not good for the Aberdeenshire native.
“After opening my winter season with a 60m indoors (in January), a couple of hours later I basically could not stand up straight,” Clark says.
“I had ongoing back issues and did not really understand them.
“We got MRI scan which confirmed I had basically slipped a disc and compressed the sciatic nerve.
“I was given a realistic time scale of one to two years and was hit the bombshell that I might never regain full nerve functionality. It’s not what you want to hear as an athlete.
“There was no quick fix so it was a real setback.”
It then followed that Clark, despite being able to avoid undergoing surgery, was forced to watch the entire season from the sidelines - as her compatriots and relay teamates were winning yet another piece of major championship silverware in the shape of bronze at the World Championships in August, Clark was battling through endless hours of rehab.
It has not, admits the 29-year-old, been an easy spell.
“I underwent a lot of physio and exercise,” says Clark, who was speaking ahead of the release of her new scottishathletics short documentary entitled ‘Zoey Clark: Fighting Back’.
“I’m trying to get back to my best self.
“I’ve been at a certain level and I need to remember to be kind to myself. I might not be able to do everything I could before – or maybe I can but just not as fast as before.
“It’s tough. It has not been smooth.
“My family, my coach and my training group have all been really good. I think I have not been the easiest person to deal with given the frustrations over the injury. If you forget to enjoy yourself, then basically you are lost.”
In the early days of her injury, Clark was faced with the terrifying prospect of her career being over for good.
However, she refused to allow retirement to be forced upon her as she has, she says, “unfinished business” with the 400m.
And 2024 could not provide a bigger goal for Clark to work towards.
The Paris Olympic Games are less then eight months away but while Clark is reluctant to make too many grand predictions about the prospect of her forcing her way into the reckoning for selection for what would be her second Olympic Games, she’s quietly hopeful that she could be on the plane to Paris next summer.
“‘I’m hesitant to put performance goals on my radar but of course I would absolutely love to get myself to Paris for the Olympics next year,’ she says.
“The Olympics are on the horizon. I am taking winter training on a day-by-day basis. I’m getting there and it is improving.
“If I recover as I hope, I feel I have unfinished business with the individual 400m. “I’d love to improve my PB and make the (Olympic) team as an individual.”
Watch ‘Zoey Clark: Fighting Back’ in full via https://www.scottishathletics.org.uk or https://www.youtube.com/scottishathletics
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here