Audrey Werro Believes She Can Break the Oldest Record in Athletics
The oldest outdoor world record in athletics has a challenger. Audrey Werro, 22, says she believes she can one day overhaul Jarmila Kratochvilova's women's 800m world record of 1:53.28 — a mark that has stood untouched since 26 July 1983, longer than any other individual track record in the sport Athletics Weekly.
That is 43 years and counting. Kratochvilova set the time in Munich representing the then Czechoslovakia, and no woman has come closer than half a second of it since. She is recognised by World Athletics as the reigning record holder and a two-time world champion World Athletics. Despite a state-run doping programme operating in her country during her career, Kratochvilova never failed a drugs test and has consistently denied cheating BBC Sport. The record carries the weight of that history, fairly or not.
Werro's case for believing is built on results, not bravado. In June, at the Meeting de Paris, she ran 1:53.80 — the third-fastest women's 800m in history, behind only Kratochvilova and Nadezhda Olizarenko, who ran 1:53.43 in 1980 European Athletics. She reached 600m in 1:25.27, just outside world-record pace, then closed with a final 200m of 28.53 seconds. For context: a world lead is the fastest time recorded in an event in a given year. Werro has not merely set the world lead — she has registered three of the ten fastest women's 800m performances of all time this season alone BBC Sport.
The Swiss athlete's trajectory has the feel of a slow build toward something inevitable. A multiple title-winner at youth level, she has improved her personal best in each of her last eight seasons. In March, she beat Britain's Keely Hodgkinson — the Olympic and European champion — to win gold at the 2026 European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, setting a championship record of 1:54.81 and denying Hodgkinson a third consecutive European title BBC Sport. She had already attempted to break the world record at the Ostrava Golden Spike meeting in Czechia earlier in the summer BBC Sport.
Yet Werro is in no rush. She has said she was not prepared for a world record this year, and that by focusing on running fast and winning races, the record will fall one day BBC Sport.
For athletics fans, that patience is the intriguing part. The women's 800m record has outlasted political regimes, generations of champions and sweeping changes in training, technology and anti-doping science. Werro is 22, already third on the all-time list, and getting faster every year. Whether 2026 or beyond, the most stubborn number in track and field finally has a credible pursuer.
