Audrey Werro runs 1:53.70 in Zurich, the third-fastest 800 m in history
The Swiss passed Femke Broeders-Bol on the final bend at Letzigrund for a Diamond League record; only two times from the early 1980s are faster.
Photograph: Audrey Werro setting the Diamond League 800 m record at Weltklasse Zürich, 27 August 2026, by Quejaytee, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsAudrey Werro won the 800 m at Weltklasse Zürich on Thursday in 1:53.70. It is a Diamond League record, a meeting record, a Swiss record and the fastest time in the world this year, and only two women have ever run faster: Jarmila Kratochvílová, 1:53.28 in 1983, the oldest world record on the track, and Nadezhda Olizarenko, 1:53.43.
Femke Broeders-Bol went through 400 m in 55.74 with Werro a quarter of a second back. They were level at 600 m. Werro kicked with about 180 m to go and passed her on the last bend. Broeders-Bol held on for 1:54.71, a Dutch record and her first time under 1:55; Georgia Hunter Bell was third in 1:55.03, her second-fastest ever.
Werro is 22. Her season has gone 1:53.98 in Stockholm, 1:53.80 in Paris, 1:54.81 to win the European title over Keely Hodgkinson, 1:55.33 to beat Broeders-Bol in Lausanne, and now this. She owns three of the five fastest 800 m times ever run. "I'm getting closer to the world record," she told Athletics Weekly, which is not a boast so much as arithmetic: 0.42 seconds.
The two names above her have been on the list for more than forty years. Nobody has been this close to them in a generation.
Sources: World Athletics; Athletics Weekly; RunBlogRun.
