Scottish sprinter Jack Carlin has been achieving at the top level on the track since his junior years, in both individual and team sprint events. This summer, Jack is aiming to medal at his second Olympic Games, in Paris.

Cycling was not always Carlin’s sport of choice, but a nasty football injury, in which he fractured both his ankles, convinced the young Scot to take up a non-contact sport for recovery.

His mother spotted a flyer for local cycling club, the Glasgow Riders, and once Carlin was acquainted with the track, his natural talent quickly blossomed and he never looked back. 

Carlin moved to Manchester to join the Great Britain Cycling Team Senior Academy and teamed up with fellow academy riders Ryan Owens and Joe Truman to form a formidable under-23 team sprint line-up, winning gold at the 2016 UEC Under-23 Track European Championships in Aigle, Switzerland. 

Later that year, the trio was selected for the elite UEC European Track Championships where they took an excellent silver in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France in 2016. The  team went on to win several medals over the following few competitions, though it took until the end of 2017 before Carlin claimed his first-ever individual medal on the elite stage, winning bronze in the sprint at the World Cup in Milton, Canada.

Carlin won his first world championship medalin 2018, a silver at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Apeldoorn as part of a five-man team sprint squad alongside Jason Kenny, Phil Hindes, Owens and Truman. Carlin then turned to individual events, producing a sensational performance to win silver in the sprint, where Australia's Matthew Glaetzer took gold after a thrilling battle.

Carlin's solo success continued in Australia the following month - winning silver in the sprint for Scotland at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast. At the world championships in Apeldoorn that year, Carlin collected two more silvers in the team and individual sprint competitions. Silver became a familiar colour for the sprint team as they collected several more second place finishes, with a European silver with Owens and Kenny in 2019, and World Cup silvers in Minsk, Belarus and Glasgow at the end of the year (the latter with the addition of Truman). A further World Cup silver followed in February 2020 in Berlin, Germany, before lockdown brought an end to competition for that year.

With 2021 came the delayed Tokyo Olympics, and Carlin’s first Olympic medals – a silver in the team sprint with Kenny and Owens, and a bronze in the individual sprint. The following year saw a return to the Scottish squad for the 2022  Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, where Carlin secured the first keirin medal of his career, a silver along with a bronze in the sprint. Carlin maintained his focus on the individual sprint in 2022, picking up bronze in the UCI Track Nations Cup in Milton, Canada, and silver in the UEC European Track Cycling Championships, Munich, Germany. Meanwhile in the team sprint, Carlin won bronze at both the European and world championships that year, in a new team configuration alongside Hamish Turnbull and Ali Fielding.

Another silver in the European Championships in Grenchen, Switzerland gave the team hope as they headed towards a home world championships in Glasgow in 2023, and while Carlin was able to win a bronze in the individual event, the team of Carlin, Fielding, Truman and Turnbull missed out in the team sprint, beaten by France into fourth place. 

As Carlin builds towards the Paris 2024 Olympics this summer, the team has taken fourth place at the UEC European Championships in Apeldoorn but have been energised following medal success at the UCI Track World Cup in Adelaide, Australia, where Carlin won bronze alongside Turnbull and Ed Lowe, followed by silver in Milton Canada where he also achieved individual success with a bronze in the keirin.