European 800m champion Audrey Werro has backed herself to overhaul one of athletics’ oldest and most controversial world records.
Jarmila Kratochvilova, representing the then Czechoslovakia, clocked one minute 53.28 seconds in 1983 and the mark has remained untouched in the 43 years since.
While a systematic doping programme of athletes was in place in the country during her career, Kratochvilova never failed a doping test and has denied cheating., externalWerro, still only 22, ran 1:53.80 in Paris in June, moving up to third in the event’s all-time list and to within half a second of Kratochvilova’s time.
“Things have happened really fast,” said Werro, on the eve of Thursday evening’s Diamond League meeting in Zurich.
“I was not prepared for a world record this year. I just want to focus on running fast and winning some races and I think with this mentality the world record will fall one day. But I don’t know when.”
Werro, a multiple title-winner at youth level, has improved her personal best in each of her last eight seasons and is now consistently within range of the world record.
This year the Swiss has registered three of the 10 fastest times in history.
“The biggest difference this year was that I finished university one year ago,” said Werro, who saw off Britain’s Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson to claim her continental title in Birmingham earlier this month.
“Now I’m just focused on athletics and I just have more time for the competition, the training, the recovery, everything.
“I have worked a lot more in the mentality part over the past two years and you are seeing the result now.”
Werro’s trademark celebration, in which she mimics outstretched claws, is in honour of her father’s advice to channel the spirit of a lion on the track after her judged her too timid in childhood races.
While Hodgkinson has pulled out of the Zurich meet — the final Diamond League outing before the series final in Brussels on 4-5 September — Femke Broeders-Bol of the Netherlands will be on the start line alongside Werro.
Broeders-Bol only stepped up to the two-lap distance this season, having won the 400m hurdles world title in Tokyo in 2025.
The 26-year-old finished only eight hundredths of a second behind Werro in Lausanne last week and took European bronze in Birmingham. She admits she has been surprised by how fast she has adapted to the event.
“I didn’t expect to be this fast already – to run a national record already – so it has been very nice to surprise myself with my level,” said Broeders-Bol.
In Hodgkinson’ absence, Georgia Hunter-Bell, who won world 800m silver last year and has claimed national and Commonwealth titles over the distance this season, will be Britain’s sole representative in the race, which begins at 20:41 BST.** —BBC**
