Chance is not a word in Megan Clark’s vocabulary; everything Australia’s strongest woman under-82kg achieves is down to her.

Clark is the national champion in her weight division, and earlier this month, set a new world record for the silver dollar deadlift when she lifted 340kg - annihilating the previous mark by 20kg.

But the 39 year-old northern suburbs strongwoman leaves nothing to luck or chance on the day, her steely gaze firmly fixated on victory.

“I don’t go into comps thinking that I have a pretty good chance of winning; nothing comes down to chance. I go into comps wanting to win and then it’s up to me to get there,” Clark said.

“It’s too far to fly and it consumes too much of your life to just go over and go ‘I’m happy with fourth place.’”

Clark is a month out from flying to Daytona, Florida, for the Official Strongman Games, where she will represent in Australia in the women’s under-82 kg category.

Among the tests confronting her in the US will be deadlifting a car axle, walking a miniature car and handling atlas stones and circus dumbbells - not that any of it phases her.

“I’m up against two of the world’s strongest women in my weight class in America, but I don’t care; I’m gonna go over and win it or I’m going to make it really bloody hard for them to win. I’ve made the choice to do that,” Clark said.

“I won nationals, because even before that event started, I’d already made a decision that I was going to win it.”

It will be the first time Clark has competed overseas, and it has come after the pandemic temporarily put her plans of competing nationally on ice.

“It was all supposed to happen three years ago and then COVID hit, so I couldn’t even compete nationally. I was just sitting over in WA, just biding my time and training hard,” she said.

“When they started to put comps on over the eastern states, the people who were winning it weren’t lifting anywhere near what I could lift, but I couldn’t attend any of them.”

Clark is a relative latecomer to the strongwoman scene, only entering the sport three years ago, after a spontaneous decision to enter the strongwoman games at the Armadale Highland Gathering ended in her winning the event.

Despite the physical feats required to succeed, Clark said she had learnt the sport was a case of mind over matter.

“The sport is so much mental and mindset, I don’t think I would have been able to do it if I was younger,” she said.

“Even three years into it, some psychological barriers are just breaking down now and that’s where I’m getting my world records from.”