Jack's Story
Fast Facts
Sport: Athletics
Event: Marathon
Olympic History: Tokyo 2020
Highlights: Gold Commonwealth Half Marathon Championship 2018
Coach: Nic Bideau
Club: Western Athletics
Year Born: 1995
State Born: Melbourne, VIC
About Jack
After searching for his ideal running distance, at the relatively young age of 23, in April 2019 Jack Rayner hit the mark with a stunning marathon debut time of 2:11.06, launching him into Tokyo Olympic selection calculations.
Aged about seven, Jack Rayner’s parents were looking for a sport for their son and after a suggestion from a neighbour he started cross country running. By age nine he had a coach, Keith Fearnley, and by age 10 he ran at his first national cross country championships.
For the next decade, he would continue to run nationally often finishing just outside the medals. He didn’t have much track success until he won the national junior 5000m title while aged 17.
After school, he was not sure what to do and after working in landscaping for a few years he knew he didn’t wish to pursue that. He was improving his road running, competing in fun runs and then decided to put everything into running and joined Nic Bideau’s Melbourne Track Club.
“When I joined the group in 2017 I didn’t really know what my distance would be,” said Rayner. “I didn’t breakthrough on the track, running 13:41 - way off running times for world champs or Olympic qualification.”
“In 2018 I had another go at the track nationals and bombed there (5th 5000m 14:01), Nic said, stay in Australia and do some road races. I found I started to find I liked road running far more than track.”
His good domestic road form earned him selection in October 2018 to represent Australia in the inaugural Commonwealth Half Marathon Championships in Cardiff, where he won in a very impressive time of 61:01.
“The week I got home (from Cardiff) the Melbourne Marathon was on and Nic asked me to pace Sinead Diver to 37km and the following week Nic asked if I wanted to run London Marathon in 2019 and I said why not and I started my marathon build-up.”
In April 2019, he made his marathon debut in London and clocked a Tokyo Olympic qualifier of 2:11.06, a time which has held up for selection for the postponed Games in 2021.
In October 2019, Rayner had the opportunity to be a part of history when he was one of the pacers in the INEOS 159 Challenge where Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge successfully ran under two hours for a marathon. Rayner ran with the first and last 5km pace groups.
A month after the INEOS challenge he ran his second career marathon on the challenging New York course, placing 22nd in 2:16.58.
Selected for the Tokyo Olympics, Rayner was unable to overcome a major injury in the leadup and withdrew from the race in Sapporo before 10km.
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