Jack Rayner (athletics) made his Commonwealth Games debut in Birmingham in 2022 where he was the best-placed Australian in the men’s 5000m in 8th. Earlier in the year, the Melbourne-born runner had won the Zatopek:10 (Australian 10,000m title) then smashed the Australian record in 27:15.22 in the USA – beating his personal best by 44 seconds – but decided to scale down after a succession of injuries.

Rayner began running aged seven, joined coach Keith Fearnley two years later and the following year he was at his first junior championships. For the next decade he would be competitive, with his national junior 5000m title at 17 his main success. He joined Nic Bideau’s Melbourne Track Club a few years after leaving school.

Beginning in June 2018, Rayner strung together seven race victories in a row, including a win in the inaugural Commonwealth Half Marathon Championships in Cardiff in an impressive 61:01. The following April, he made his marathon debut in London where he clocked a Tokyo Olympic qualifier of 2:11.06. Later in 2019, he was also one of 41 pacers – running in teams over 5km stints – who helped Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge to become the first person to run a marathon in under two hours. Rayner was forced to withdraw from the delayed Tokyo Olympic marathon in Sapporo with a stress fracture before the 10km mark.

2023 saw him pull on the Australian singlet for the World Athletics Cross Country Championships on home soil in Bathurst before taking out the Australian Road Running title in Adelaide in September.

He has partnered with Brett Robinson and Collis Birmingham to create Pulse Running, a resource to help aspiring runners.