There’s nothing more satisfying in sports than watching an underdog rewrite the script, and that’s exactly what 19-year-old Ava Crean did at the Dublin Marathon. Just six months after casually running her first-ever marathon in Manchester with no competitive ambitions, the teenager turned the streets of Dublin into her playground. She stunned everyone by finishing sixth overall in 2:34:12, dethroning three-time defending champion Ann-Marie McGlynn (eighth overall, 2:36:24) to claim the national title.

“From the third kilometre I was like, ‘How am I supposed to keep this pace?’ I was getting cramps here and there but I kept pushing. With 10 kilometres to go, my legs seized up. I never felt so much lactate in my legs before. I couldn’t even believe it until I saw the finish line. In my he

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