On April 22, 42-year-old runner Ava Fevrier etched her name into Caribbean athletics history by crossing the finish line of the Boston Marathon, securing her place among an exclusive global group of endurance athletes and claiming the prestigious Six Star Medal for completing all six Abbott World Marathon Majors.
Since the accolade was first introduced in 2016, fewer than 25,000 runners across the globe have earned this distinguished honor. Fevrier, a native of the Saint Lucian coastal town of Dennery, is not just the first woman from her island nation to claim this achievement—she also ranks among fewer than 50 Six Star medalists from the entire English-speaking Caribbean.
Fevrier’s journey to this historic milestone began unexpectedly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. After watching urban marathon events on YouTube during global lockdowns, she developed a passion for road running, and over just two years, she checked off all six major races: Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, and New York City. She completed the 2026 Boston Marathon in a time of 4:17:10, capping off her incredible run of achievements. While she already holds the Saint Lucian national women’s marathon record of 3:48:41 set at the London Marathon, Fevrier said her only goal for Boston was simply to cross the finish line intact.
Reflecting on her experience at the 2026 Boston Marathon, Fevrier shared that race weekend was overwhelmingly positive. “The whole weekend in Boston has been pretty amazing, just very relaxed and a lot of people so that just has made the environment exciting. The weather was perfect for racing, and the bottom line was to have a good race, to feel strong the entire race, which I did until like maybe the last three miles,” she explained in an interview with local outlet St Lucia Times.
She added that she approached the hilly Boston course with a deliberate strategy: “I really started this race not thinking about time. I just wanted to celebrate everything I’ve done, but I also just wanted to have a strong race, especially knowing that there were all these hills coming up the last half. So, it really was a tactical race to make sure that I could survive the last half, knowing there are all these hills, and I ran every single hill. I never walked up a hill. I never stopped on the hill.”
Fevrier gave public credit to her training and racing teammates for their unwavering support throughout her Six Star journey, noting that they ran alongside her for parts of the Boston course, stopping only to greet cheering spectators and pick up a Saint Lucian national flag from a local cheer station. For Fevrier, this achievement carries a unique weight that her national record does not.
“Yeah, this one is different,” she stated. “The records are pretty impressive, but all records can be broken, right? The goal is for us to find those fast people and shatter those records that I’ve put in place. But that Six Star, being the first female Six Star, no one can take that away from me. It will always be there. It will always be something that others would hopefully follow. So it’s nice that that’s just stamped in its place and no one can actually remove it.”
While Fevrier frames her national record as a milestone meant to be surpassed, she says she is “over the moon” to have earned her place in the Six Star Hall of Fame. She follows compatriot Nitin Sharma, who became the first Saint Lucian man to earn the Six Star Medal in 2025 before going on to complete the extra Seven Stars distinction by adding the Sydney Marathon to his resume. Fevrier says she now plans to pursue that same seven-race achievement next.
In the broader eastern Caribbean region, Fevrier is only the second woman to hold the Six Star honor, joining Philomena Robertson of Grenada, who completed her set at the Tokyo Marathon earlier this year. By 2027, two more Saint Lucian runners—current Five Star holders Pamella Edward and Che Odlum-De Vivenot—could join the exclusive group.
Fevrier now hopes her historic achievement will inspire more people across her home island to take up endurance running. In a message to local runners, she said, “I just want people to give it a try. Start with that 5K, start with that 10K, and build up to a half and then build up to a marathon. It’s something I’m hoping people become more interested in, and I’m starting to see some of that. There’s one runner we found through the running community in the States, and he’s started running 10-milers.”
She emphasized that elite endurance marathon running is an attainable goal for Saint Lucian athletes, even if it requires significant commitment: “And that’s kind of the idea, to kind of help people see that this is attainable… Endurance running is attainable, and it does take training just like the middle distances or the sprints. It does take as much work as track and field. We are working our butts off, all through the seasons. And even getting to the majors itself is a feat. It takes a lot of work, scheduling, finance, training, travelling, so it’s a lot, but I just want people to try. See if you like it, and hopefully we can find people who will really build up this part of the sport.”
For Fevrier, the sport has already transformed her life for the better, after she first discovered it by chance during pandemic lockdowns. She shows no signs of slowing down now, with new goals that extend beyond her own racing: she is focused on growing the local running community in Saint Lucia and encouraging more local athletes to follow in her footsteps and claim their own Six Star Medals.
