Solomon staying on track

AUSTRALIA’S fastest 400m runner Steve Solomon was in high demand from Australia’s biggest corporations when he returned home last year with degrees from two of America’s top universities.

A finalist at the London Olympics in his late teens, he had the profile, the smarts and the ambition that the big end of town desires. But there was a problem. Solomon’s athletics career is still flourishing and he’s preparing for next year’s Tokyo Olympics, so he needed a job with the flexibility to train and travel.

The offers disappeared. “Sorry,” they said. “You can’t do both.” Welcome to the world of high-performance sport, where Australia’s top athletes have to fend for themselves because the government has slashed funding to elite sports.

Solomon wasn’t asking for a handout because he believes working complements his running, just as study did when he was based in the US.

And he got lucky. He found an employer willing to take a chance on him — the US online food-ordering giant, Uber Eats. And not just as a driver. Uber Eats hired him as a partnership associate on its enterprise team and gave him its blessing to continue running. “I didn’t realise how difficult it would be to find such an employer,” Solomon said. “It was a long process and at times it was very frustrating, but Uber Eats totally got it.

“It’s a young tech company that’s moving very quickly in the sense that people don’t have time for office politics or any barriers to my success and ability to contribute positively.”

Fitting everything in means Solomon arrives at the office at 7am and knocks off early on Tuesdays and Thursdays to train at Homebush with his coach Penny Gillies, who represented Australia in hurdles at the 1972 and 1980 Olympics.

He trains on weekends and squeezes in gym sessions during lunch breaks or after he leaves the office.

“I am very conscious of the luck that has fallen upon me,” he said.