The bell was ordinary. The finish was not. On a cool Sunday evening at the Bauhaus-Galan in Stockholm, Audrey Werro ran 800 metres in 1:53.98 — a time no woman had bettered since Jarmila Kratochvilova and Nadezhda Olizarenko in the early 1980s. Switzerland's Audrey Werro stormed to third on the world 800m all-time list as she ran a Wanda Diamond League record of 1:53.98 to win a sensational race against Keely Hodgkinson. The clock stopped, and a 43-year silence broke with it.
How it was decided
The target was set at 1:54, and Werro trusted it. The target time was set at 1:54 and it was Werro who tracked the pacemaker as she reached 400m in 55.54. Behind her, the Olympic champion waited. Hodgkinson kicked off the bend and led until the final straight but Werro, who won the Diamond League title last year, was in hot pursuit.
The race turned in the last eighty metres. Werro kicked past the Olympic champion down the home straight, striding over the finish line in 1:53.98 to become just the third woman in history to break 1:54. Hodgkinson did not fade so much as she was overtaken by history. They pushed each other to two of the six fastest times in history, 22-year-old Werro becoming the first woman to break 1:54 in almost 43 years and Hodgkinson running a British record of 1:54.33 for the fastest ever non-winning time. Behind them, USA's Roisin Willis was third in a PB of 1:57.56.
Werro spoke as someone still catching up with the result. "I still need to process. I am still in shock at this performance," said Werro. "Today I was in great shape, I was ready mentally and physically, so it was a good day for me." The tactic, she admitted, was improvised. "It was not my main goal to follow the pacemaker, but the race went like that. When they dropped out, I decided to follow Keely as long as possible, and I gave it everything I had."
The scale of the leap
Werro arrived in Stockholm known, but not feared at this level. She was the World U20 silver medalist in 2022 behind American Roisin Willis, won the Diamond League title last season, and ran 1:56.64 at World Indoors in March. The gap to Hodgkinson had looked settled. At World Indoors, there was a clear gap between Hodgkinson and Werro — the two were not on the same level.
One race closed it. After a 1.93-second personal best — an almost unheard-of leap at this level — Werro is not only at the Brit's level, she has run faster than Hodgkinson ever has. The names now above her belong to another era. Werro and Hodgkinson now sit third and sixth on the world all-time list in the women's 800. Only Kratochvilova's 1:53.28 and Olizarenko's 1:53.43, both set more than four decades ago, remain in front.
She is 22. The list ahead of her is short, and it is old.
