'Right place, right time' - Clarke-Khan eyes Paris

Joel Clarke-Khan has a personal best of 2.27m

Worcester high-jumper Joel Clarke-Khan feels everything is coming together at the right time at he bids to secure his place at the Olympic Games.

The 24-year-old competes at the UK Athletics Championships this weekend hoping to clear the Olympic qualifying height and book a ticket to Paris.

A broken metatarsal bone in January badly interrupted his preparation but he is travelling to Manchester with confidence.

"This season has been so rocky," he told BBC Hereford and Worcester. "But somehow this week has lined up perfectly for the championships this weekend.

"I don't know how we got there - it hasn't been a smooth path, but I'm in the right place at the right time."

Clarke-Khan, who began competing at Worcester Athletics Club, will need a new personal best to achieve the Olympic qualifying height of 2.33m.

His cleared his current best height of 2.27m at the Olympic Stadium in London last July.

"Hopefully I can go out on Saturday, give it everything I've got and book my ticket to Paris," he said.

Joel Clarke-Khan is a three-time British champion

"My confidence has been all over the shop because I don't know if I'm fit or in form.

"But this week I have done some stuff in training that has given me the confidence that I'm more than capable of achieving that Olympic qualifying height."

A broken foot at the start of the year forced Clarke-Khan into a protective boot for 13 weeks.

"It was rough and there were some real down periods," he said.

"But because I wasn't actually jumping it gave me a chance to fully reset and then my motivation sky-rocketed because all I wanted to do was get back out there and jump.

"I had two to three down weeks and then it was onwards and upwards, doing everything in my power to get back jumping. I just wanted to jump again."

'There's gonna be tears'

Clarke-Khan has won the British Championship three times and came fifth at the Commonwealth Games in 2022.

But competing at the Olympics would mark a new career high.

"I've thought about it over and over again because if I clear a certain bar on Saturday, in that moment I will know," he said.

"There's gonna be tears. This has been my dream for 10-11 years so it would mean everything to me."