The Swiss athlete saw off the challenge of both Femke Broeders-Bol and Georgia Hunter Bell on a historic night of records in Zürich.

Audrey Werro edged closer to the world 800m record with another impressive display on home soil at the Zürich Diamond League (August 27).

In what was billed by some fans as 'the race of the year', the Swiss athlete improved her own national record with a stunning 1:53.70 to take the win.

Since the start of June Werro has dominated the 800m. She ran 1:53.98 to beat Keely Hodgkinson in Stockholm, clocked 1:53.80 to beat Femke Broeders-Bol in Paris and then saw off both of them to become European champion in Birmingham.

In Lausanne Broeders-Bol got within whiskers of Werro – the pair clocked 1:55.33 and 1:55.41 respectively – and the Dutch athlete left the city with a different race tactic in mind for Zürich.

Here Broeders-Bol tried to get in front of Werro and going into the final straight of the second lap it looked like the plan had worked. Broeders-Bol was slightly ahead of Werro at the 400m mark – with times of 55.74 and 55.99 – and by 600m they were almost level (1:25.27 v 1:25.28 in Werro's favour).

With a sold-out partisan crowd at the Stadion Letzigrund behind her, Werro kicked with 180m to go, passing Broeders-Bol on the final bend into the home straight.

Not only was Werro's winning mark a Diamond League record but she now holds three of the fastest five times in history, with only Jarmila Kratochvílová's (1:53.28) and Nadezhda Olizarenko (1:53.43) ahead of her.

She has now run quicker than 1:55 on an astonishing five occasions this year, having also clocked 1:54.45 in Ostrava and 1:54.81 in Birmingham.

Werro, who is now training full-time after completing her studies, will be the likely favourite going into the 800m at the World Athletics Ultimate Championships in Budapest.

For Broeders-Bol it marks another boundary broken. Since clocking 1:59.07 indoors in Metz back in February, the Dutch athlete has gotten progressively quicker and in Zürich broke the 1:55-barrier for the first time, improving her own national record with 1:54.71.

In what is her first season over two laps, the double world 400m hurdles champion has never run over two minutes in any race. From securing a bronze medal at the European Athletics Championships to now going ninth on the 800m all-time list, Broeders-Bol is starting to master both the art of championships running and time trialling in the middle distances.

Georgia Hunter Bell wasn't too far off the pace of either Werro or Broeders-Bol and she ran her second quickest ever time – only behind the 1:54.90 that secured her Olympic 800m silver in Tokyo – with 1:55.03 in Zürich.

It was the Brit's first time trial over 800m since placing second to Werro at last year's Weltklasse, following on from a summer where Hunter Bell became European champion in the 1500m and a Commonwealth gold medallist over two laps.

More to follow...