Australian runners will welcome recent copies (8)
I believe the answer is:
emulates
'copies' is the definition.
('emulate' can be a synonym of 'copy')
'australian runners will welcome recent' is the wordplay.
'australian runners' becomes 'emus'.
'will welcome' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'recent' becomes 'late' ('late' can be similar in meaning to 'recent').
'emus' going around 'late' is 'EMULATES'.
(Other definitions for emulates that I've seen before include "Copies" , "tries to follow" , "Tries hard to be equal to" , "Imitates" .)