Newly-crowned European champ Werro turns focus on 800m record / Photo: Paul ELLIS - AFP
Newly-crowned European champ Werro turns focus on 800m record
Newly-crowned European 800m champion Audrey Werro will turn her attention from her stunning triumph in Birmingham last week to athletics' oldest world record on home soil in Lausanne on Friday.
Werro outgunned Britain's Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson for continental gold in a championship record of 1min 54.81sec.
The 22-year-old Swiss athlete has twice broken the 1:54 barrier this season, becoming the first woman to do so since 1983.
That was the year that Jarmila Kratochvilova of then-Czechoslovakia ran the two-lap race in 1:53.28.
It remains the oldest world record in track and field, albeit one that is highly contested having come during a period when systemic doping of athletes was prevalent. Kratochvilova, however, never failed a doping test.
There is no Hodgkinson for the Diamond League meet in Lausanne, but Kenya's world champion Lilian Odira and Dutchwoman Femke Broeders-Bol, who won European bronze behind Werro and Hodgkinson in Birmingham, will offer some stiff competition.
"I want to win in front of the Lausanne crowd," said Werro.
Unlike the European champs, the Diamond League features wavelight technology, trackside lighting that enables runners to see at what pace they are running.
Werro will also have Myrte van der Schoot as her pacemaker.
"The first 400 metres in 55.5sec, that's what we had asked the pacemaker to do at the Diamond League in Paris, and I think that makes a lot of sense," she said.
"I don't want to put pressure on myself about it. It's my dream to get it one day, but above all, I want to run fast."
Werro's path to European gold was not straightforward as she was brought crashing to the ground in her semi-final after being clipped.
"I knew that I needed to finish the race in order to maybe be in the final, so I just decided to get up and finish the the race," she said.
"It was a little bit harder because of everything going on. So, for the drama, I just deleted all my social media, and yeah, it was a little bit hard being in the final without standard qualification.
"But I did some work with my mental coach for the final, and then everything was just fine. It worked really well."
The fall and subsequent gold, Werro said, had been "really good for confidence. It was a hard fall, but it gave me energy".
- Beyond expectations -
Broeders-Bol continued her astonishing transition from the 400m hurdles, an event in which she is a two-time former world champion, with an 800m bronze.
"This year is going better than I could expect for the first year," she said.
"It's a lot faster and, technically, I'm already a lot better than we expected, so it's really fun, and I'm really happy."
Her podium run saw Broeders-Bol equal the Dutch national record of 1:55.54 set by Ellen van Langen in 1991. She also anchored the Dutch women's quartet to victory in the 4x400m relay.
"After Paris, I was very close, and I really didn't expect it that day," she said of that record.
"So then it started to be a bit in my head, like maybe I can do it this year. But at the beginning of the year, it wasn't at all on the cards to think about it.
"It's very special to equal it because Ellen is a legend in our country."
Turning to Friday's race, Broeders-Bol said her tactics would not change.
Her aim, the 26-year-old said, was to "just see if every race I can improve things that could be better from a previous one".
"I will just enjoy. I will see what the race brings, and at 200 metres, find your way and keep going."
T.Moens--JdB
