Lake targetting British high jump record in 2018

The 20-year-old followed on from her tenth-place finish at Rio 2016 by impressing once more at the World Athletics Championships on home soil a year later – her jump of 1.94m good enough for sixth in the competition.

This was after leaping a personal best of 1.96m at the British Championships earlier in 2017 – the third best jump ever by a British woman.

Lake has a busy 2018 ahead of her and has Katarina Johnson-Thompson's record of 1.98m in her sights.

First on her agenda, however, are the British Indoor Championships at Arena Birmingham next month, a competition in which she is hoping to triumph.

"It's a venue that both British legends and current athletes all talk up when it comes to competing there, so I'm really excited to see what the talk is about for myself and hopefully come away with the win," said Lake, who came tenth in the Olympic high jump at Rio 2016 after leaping 1.94m in Brazil.

"At the beginning of the 2017 I'd been training as a heptathlete until the last couple of months going into the World Championships, so it was something of a surprise to even be in the [high jump] team.

"To come sixth with my second best ever result was pretty cool, especially as jumping a personal best a few weeks before at the British Championships was a big high too.

"I jumped 1.94m in 2014 and have had quite a few years of being around the same height, so when I cleared 1.96m [at the British Championships] – as great as it was – I knew that I was still better than that.

"It was amazing to get 1.96m, but the British record height is something I'm definitely still looking at – we'll just have to see."

Sportsbeat 2018