Marian Heffernan

Marian Heffernan was born in 1982 in County Cork, Ireland, where she learned to run before she ever stood on a global stage. She carried that local speed into the women's 4 × 400 metres relay at the 2012 Summer Olympics, joining Ireland's best and turning a small county life into a world event. Her name still belongs to both places: the green fields where she began and the loud track where she flew.