Audrey Werro European 800 metres champion in 1:54.81

Audrey Werro has won the European 800 metres title in Birmingham, stopping the clock at 1:54.81, a time that equals the championship record. The 22-year-old from Fribourg finished ahead of Britain's Keely Hodgkinson, Olympic champion and winner of the last two European titles, second in 1:55.01, and the Dutch runner Femke Broeders-Bol, twice world champion over 400 metres hurdles, third in 1:55.54. It is the third fastest time in history over the distance.

The final brought the three athletes together in the same race for the first time. Werro, in lane nine, took the lead immediately and held off Hodgkinson's attacks. She accelerated again at 300 metres, passing halfway in 56.45, faster than Jarmila Kratochvílová in 1983, when the Czech set the world record of 1:53.28 that still stands and is the oldest in athletics. Down the final straight the Swiss runner held on and prevented the Briton from coming back.

The win came the day after she fell in the semi-final and was subsequently reinstated. Werro said she felt above all relief after what happened on Thursday, that she had found it hard to think of herself in a championship final without having gone through qualifying, that she nevertheless knew she deserved the place, and that she chose to take responsibility for the race by lifting the pace every hundred metres. The two other Swiss runners in the final finished seventh, Valentina Rosamilia in 1:59.42, and eighth, Veronica Vancardo in 2:00.17.

A first podium for the relay and silver for Lobalu

The women's 4x100 metres relay won its first medal at a major championship on Saturday: silver behind Great Britain. Géraldine Di Tizio-Frey, Fabienne Hoenke, Léonie Pointet and Salomé Kora finished in 43.12, more than a second behind the winners, hampered by a botched final changeover that forced Kora to set off almost from a standstill. Even so the Swiss quartet edged out Poland at the line by three hundredths. For all four it is a first continental medal at this level. In the semi-final, with Ajla Del Ponte in place of Hoenke, the relay had run 42.38.

Dominic Lobalu took silver over 10,000 metres in 27:42.67, about five seconds off his personal best, beaten by Sweden's Andreas Almgren, who dominated the race from start to finish in 27:23.44, a new championship record. Bronze went to France's Jimmy Gressier in 28:07.90. The defending champion, Lobalu had come to Birmingham without having raced 10 kilometres since the Tokyo World Championships in September 2025, and had finished seventh in the 5,000 metres on Monday. The other Swiss runner in the final, Jonas Raess, came eighth with his best time of the season, 28:22.41.