Nobody in athletics has developed quite like Audrey Werro over the past 12 months.
On Thursday, the Swiss athlete headlines the women’s 800m race at the Zurich Diamond League, the very meet at which she announced herself to the world last year.
Werro, then 21, left the Letzigrund stadium in August 2025 as a Diamond League champion, only the second Swiss athlete to win the final meet of the season (after long jumper Simon Ehammer).
She had produced the performance of her young career, running 1:55.91s to finish ahead of Georgia Hunter-Bell, an Olympic 1500m medallist. In the process, she revised her own Swiss record for the third time in as many months, a progression that saw her jump from 101st to 29th on the all-time list in the same summer.
If that sounds impressive, then the Werro that will walk into Letzigrund on Thursday evening is on another level: European champion, unbeaten in four Diamond League races in 2026 (winning every one in a meet-record time), and, most notably, the third-fastest ever.
Her 1:53.80s run in Paris at the end of June is the best over 800m since Jarmila Kratochvilova set the world record in 1983. That is the longest-standing athletics world record and a mark that, in over four decades, has only been troubled by a handful of women — now Werro is a little more than half a second from it.
“It’s clear my status (has) changed from last year, some crazy things have happened this year,” she said in Zurich ahead of the race. “I’m really proud of my progression, running close to the world record this year, it’s really great.”
She has even usurped Keely Hodgkinson, the Briton who, in 2024, raced a perfect season to claim European and Olympic golds and looked unbeatable. Werro, having out-kicked her rival to win the Stockholm Diamond League at the start of June, spoiled the party for Keely on home soil in August, stealing her continental crown at the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham, England.
“I knew I would be European champion one day,” she beamed in the mixed zone, sporting a tiara, given to her by team-mates at Belfaux, her athletics club. “I’m a bit of an 18-year-old queen, so I allowed myself to bring it.”
That smile replaced the grimace from the day before, when Werro had fallen in the semi-final. Officials advanced her to the final because video review showed that her foot clipped another athlete as they ran around the final bend.
Audrey Werro reacts after falling during her semi-final fall at the European Championships (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)
Unhurt and undeterred, Werro took the final to the rest of the field, running a gun-to-tape 1:54.81s for gold, smashing the European Athletics Championships record from 1982 in the process.
“I told myself that I had the best times and that I’d run many races at the front, even if there was a pacemaker,” Werro said in response to a question about the risk of her tactics, given that she effectively turned a championship race into a time trial. “I knew that I was capable of running the whole race from the front, so I decided that was my best card to play.”
Hodgkinson, processing mixed emotions, had run over a second and a half quicker than the time that brought her gold in 2024, but had to settle for silver. “There will always be competitors coming along. You don’t know when someone is going to have a breakthrough,” she said.
Based on the potential Werro showed in her youth, her rapid rise was a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. This time last year, she was finishing her studies, ready to turn professional following immense promise at age-group championships.
At the under-20 level, she twice won European gold and took a world silver medal at age 18. In July 2025, just eight days after she competed against a senior field over 1,000m at the Monaco Diamond League, Werro demolished the 800m field at the European under-23 finals, taking gold with a championship-record run of 1:57.42s.
The catalyst for her progression this year, as she keeps repeating, is more to do with life off the track than on it. “The biggest change is that I’m no longer at school. It was tough to juggle both activities,” she said in Paris in late June, after breaking her own Diamond League 800m record from Stockholm. In the French capital, she finished nearly two seconds ahead of Femke Broeders-Bol, who ran a personal best for second place — a ridiculous winning margin at elite level.
“Now, there is no excuse, as I have all the time in the world to just focus on training, recovering, and the sport itself,” Werro continued. “My transition from being a junior to a senior was very challenging.”
Audrey Werro’s potential has been evident for years (Jurij Kodrun/Getty Images for European Athletics)
She referenced the European Championships in Munich in 2022, when she came sixth in her heat and was eliminated, a race that Hodgkinson won en route to taking gold in the final. “It was really hard to find my place in the field,” Werro said.
Two years later, on her Olympic debut at the Paris Games, she went out in the heats again, fifth in a field of eight athletes. Learning to race rounds with championship tactics has taken her some time.
In March last year, at the European indoors, she cruised through the heats and semi-finals, but tripped in the final and finished sixth. Then, in the same month, she missed the podium at the world indoors by one hundredth of a second, beaten to bronze by Patricia Silva, who ran her down on the final straight.
“I’ve learned a lot over the past few years, and I’m now much better equipped tactically and mentally for competition. It’s paying off this year,” she said in the press conference before the Paris Diamond League.
She has surprised herself, too. “My time in Stockholm (1:53.98s, now fourth all-time) was incredible. I didn’t expect to achieve that this year — I thought it would happen further down the line.”
Werro’s success is a story of patience and trust. She still trains in the western Swiss canton of Fribourg, where she grew up, and opted to stay with coach Christiane Berset Nuoffer — who has trained her since age nine — instead of heading to the United States, where, based on the times she is running now, significant collegiate success would have awaited her.
On such an accelerated development curve, it can be hard to know when to let gratitude take over ambition. Werro and her coaching team structured their outdoor season with the aim of her medalling at the European Championships, and she won world indoor silver behind Hodgkinson in Poland this March — hardware that, in addition to her times, is undeniable proof of her ability.
The only thing that might get in Werro’s way is the very thing that makes her successful: long legs. She tends to be the tallest in the field, and it’s why front-running makes particular sense: to give her space to run and avoid any tangles.
With Hodgkinson a late withdrawal from Zurich — saying at the start of this week that her body is still recovering after the European Championships — there is even more expectation on Werro to deliver in front of a home crowd.
Also racing against her are Kenya’s Lilian Odira and Georgia Hunter-Bell of Great Britain, who won gold and silver at the World Championships last September. Werro was sixth in that race, another marker of her rapid improvement this year.
The biggest threat to Werro’s winning streak is Broeders-Bol, who pushed her all the way to the line last week. In Lausanne, Werro recorded her fourth Diamond League victory of 2026. The only women to win more 800m races on the circuit in one season are Eunice Jepkoech Sum (six in 2015) and Caster Semenya (five apiece in 2016, 2017 and 2018).
There’s a story behind how Werro celebrates, too. She bares her teeth and shows her nails in a playful roar. “When I was a child, my dad used to tell me (that) I have to be a lion, (that) I shouldn’t be shy and let other athletes go past me.”
Those words have proved prophetic. Nobody is going past her now, as Werro has Kratochvilova’s record in her sights. To break that on home soil and cap an already magical season would be frankly ridiculous. But this is Werro, for whom the ridiculous is now ordinary.
