Audrey Werro on her way to 800m victory at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship (© Getty Images)
“Growing up, I was looking at the sprint athletes,” says Audrey Werro, the Swiss 22-year-old who enjoyed a swift ascent to the summit of the women's 800m this year.
“They are sometimes a little bit extravagant, and I am not like that,” she admits. “But it's a good example that I can be little more extravagant, as I'm really shy and need to take a little bit of their confidence.”
Throughout the year, Werro celebrated her wins with a claws-out pose, which came from her childhood when her father, Claude, urged her “not to be shy, but to be a lion” when she stepped on the track.
Her races had a familiar feel throughout the season, with Werro adopting a front-running, catch-me-if-you-can tactic, and while success hasn't altered her humble personality, it has instilled more self-belief.
“On the track, I'm now not the same person I am (away from) the track,” she says. “This is two personalities, and I'm so happy I found the personality that is able to run fast and be confident.”
Audrey Werro celebrates her win at the Ultimate Championship (© World Athletics 
Mattia Ozbot)
It's been a brilliant, breakthrough year, with Werro winning world indoor silver behind Britain's Keely Hodgkinson in March before an unbeaten outdoor campaign, barring her fall in the European semifinals. After being advanced to the 800m final, she went on to win gold before also winning the Diamond League Final and the World Athletics Ultimate Championship.
In Stockholm in June, she became the third woman in history to break 1:54, clocking 1:53.98. At the Paris Diamond League a few weeks later, she improved her Swiss record to 1:53.80, edging ever closer to Jarmila Kratochvilova's world record of 1:53.28.
Heading into 2026, Werro had three chief goals: a medal at the Europeans, a win at the Diamond League Final and to improve her Swiss record of 1:55.91. “Even if it was (by) one second, I'd have been happy,” she says.
Was the world record on her mind?
“This is motivation, but this was not my goal for this season,” she explains. “I know the world record will (go) down one day, and this is a great thing.”
Audrey Werro wins the Diamond League 800m title (© World Athletics Christel Saneh)
A native of Fribourg in the west of Switzerland, Werro took up athletics at the age of nine. There was no major running background in her family, but she gravitated towards it after a schoolteacher told her she had talent.
She did a variety of sports in her childhood but once she found athletics, it had her full attention.
At Club Athlétique Belfaux, she came under the guidance of Christiane Berset Nuoffer, who still coaches her today.
“A really good coach,” says Werro. “She makes me feel confident (before) the race.”
Her talent was clear from an early age. In 2019, aged 15, Werro ran 1:31.59 for 600m and the following year she clocked 2:08.72 for 800m. The summer of 2021 saw her set Swiss U18 records at 400m (53.74), 600m (1:26.61) and 800m (2:02.32), before powering to the European U20 title.
In 2022, she won silver in the world U20 800m final behind Roisin Willis, while in 2023 she retained her European U20 title, then in 2024 she competed at her first Olympics in Paris.
Audrey Werro at the 2022 World U20 Championships (© World Athletics Marta Gorczynska)
In 2025, the signs were clear that Werro was a rising force, finishing fourth in the world indoor 800m final and sixth in the world outdoor final. But 2026 was when she arrived at the very top.
She has had the same training setup for several years at CA Belfaux, and while Werro doesn't count her training volume, she reckons it's about 60 kilometres a week.
“I know these people for a long time, it was my first athletics club,” she says. “I do most of my training with the club, I do some alone. For me, the most important thing is to be with people. I train every day, twice a day.”
If there's been a key difference in 2026, it's that Werro is now a full-time athlete.
“I can just focus on athletics,” she says. “I have more time to recover. It was hard before that, I was in high school, the school before university. So, I finished this and now I'm enjoying athletics for a couple of years.”
Her years of work came to fruition during the outdoor season, with Werro leading all the way to beat Hodgkinson and Femke Broeders-Bol in the European 800m final in Birmingham in 1:54.81.
She adopted similar tactics to win the Diamond League Final in Brussels, edging Broeders-Bol to victory by 0.06, and she did the same again at the Ultimate Championship in Budapest, where she dominated the 800m to win in 1:55.88.
When it comes to tactics, Werro feels most comfortable leading races, controlling the tempo, and her strength and speed over the final 200 metres during the outdoor season ensured no one could get past.
“I feel more free,” she says of that front-running tactic.
Success has instilled confidence, but Werro knows how vicious the standard is in her event, and so it's not something she takes for granted.
“The most important thing this year in order to stay the best was to keep in my mind that one day, I will get beaten,” she says. “I need to accept that. No one is invincible, and if I keep that in my mind, I'm just more free to run like I want to.”
Werro is currently enjoying a four-week break from training and she hopes to return better than ever in 2027. What area can still be improved?
“My start,” she says. “I'm not the best at the start and I can maybe improve that for next season.”
Whatever about those opening metres, the rest of Werro's race already looks like the finished product. In an event that's been impossible to look away from all year, she has set a very high bar for her rivals to clear as the focus shifts to 2027.
And it's a bar rising all the time. Catch her if you can.
Cathal Dennehy for World Athletics
