Steven Solomon (athletics) captained the athletics team at his third Commonwealth Games appearance at Birmingham 2022 where he finished 7th in the men’s 400m just weeks after recovering from a hamstring injury, an identical result to the Gold Coast Games four years earlier.

Encouraged by his Cranbrook school sports teacher to try the 400, the undersized Wallaby hopeful measured a 47.77 PB by the end of his first season. Capping off the year with a 4x400m international debut at the 2010 World Juniors in Canada, Solomon lowered his PB to 45.58 the following year and quickly became Australia’s junior and senior 400m champion.

In just his third year in the sport, Solomon was the youngest competitor in the men’s 400m at the London 2012 Olympics, winning his heat in 45.18, and ran 44.97 in the semi-final before ultimately placing eighth. Four years later, he missed out on qualifying for Rio by 45.50 by just 0,1 of a second but returned as co-captain of the athletics team in Tokyo in 2021 where he recorded a PB of 44.94 in his heat before placing 13th overall. He also made four world championships (2013, 2017, 2019, 2022) appearances with a best result of 8th in Moscow in 2013.

Despite starting at Stanford University studying pre-med following his Olympic debut, Solomon quickly developed a passion for technology and entrepreneurship. He moved to Duke University where he gained a bachelor’s degree in human biology and graduate degree in management studies before moving back to Sydney in 2018. He then spent five years at Uber helping develop their online delivery strategy and now works for TDM Growth Partners as part of their investment team.