Swiss athlete Audrey Werro claimed her first senior international title by beating home favourite Keely Hodgkinson over 800m at the European Championships in Birmingham, England.

Werro, 22, won in a championship-record time of 1:54.81s, taking more than half a second off Olga Mineyeva’s championship record of 1:55.41s that had stood since 1982.

Hodgkinson, the defending European champion from 2024 and Olympic gold medallist, relinquished her continental crown, taking silver as she finished two tenths back on Werro (1:55.01s), while also going under Mineyeva’s 1982 record. Femke Broeders-Bol of the Netherlands tied her national record for bronze (1:55.54s).

The win owed to perfectly-executed tactics by Werro, who beat Hodgkinson, 24, for only the second time in their ninth meeting. The Briton ran the opening bend hard from lane five, vying to be first at the break point to get onto the rail. Werro started in lane nine because she had been advanced to the final after tripping in the semi-final. By 200m, the Swiss woman had caught up to Hodgkinson and took a lead that she never gave up.

“I had a lot of emotion in me. I’m really happy with this medal,” Werro said in an interview on the track.

They hit 400m in 56.45s and a breakaway group of four emerged, with Jemma Reekie tagging onto the trio of Werro, Hodgkinson and Broeders-Bol, who were in a race together for the very first time. This is Broeders-Bol’s debut 800m season after a glittering 400m hurdles career.

Werro showed superior speed endurance on the second lap with near-perfect 100m splits of 14.6s, 14.6s, 14.3 and 14.8s.

“One mistake and you’re lucky to recover,” he said. Werro, having slowed midway through the second lap in her semi-final — which caused the field to bunch and led to her foot clipping another runner — clearly learned from that. Between 500 and 600m, she made sure that Hodgkinson did not close the gap.

The British athlete’s efforts to rally on the home straight and chase Werro down were met with roars by a sold-out crowd of 23,000 at Alexander Stadium. She ran more than three seconds quicker than she had in the same final two years ago, and while Hodgkinson did not get the medal she wanted, taking silver means she continues her streak of medalling at every international championships — this is her 12th career podium.

(Sona Maleterova/Getty Images)

“I’m sure we’ll have many battles ahead, I’ll settle for silver,” Hodgkinson said in an on-track interview. This is a first defeat in a senior European final for the Briton, who had won four golds from as many finals indoors and outdoors, and and was vying to become the first to defend the title at two consecutive championships.

Werro, meanwhile, caps the best two-lap season by a woman since the turn of the century. In her first full season at senior level she produced the third, fourth and ninth-quickest times ever this year. The standout of those was the win over Hodgkinson at the Stockholm Diamond League in June, when she ran 1:53.80s — the best performance since the world record was set in 1983.

Having first competed against one another four years ago, six of the 10 races between Hodgkinson and Werro have had them as the top two. Hodgkinson is up 8-2 on the head-to-head, and they may meet again on the Diamond League circuit this summer, before a likely showdown at the World Ultimate Championships in Budapest in mid-September.

The PGA Tour’s playoffs received a necessary burst of energy Friday, as Scottie Scheffler’s play could only be matched by the temperatures in Memphis.

Scheffler shot a 61 at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, walking off the golf course at TPC Southwind with a three-shot lead during the first event of the FedEx Cup playoffs.

Battling temperatures that rose to triple digits Friday afternoon, which led to sweat drenching the back of Scheffler’s polo shirt, he stormed out to six birdies in his first seven holes and shared the lead with Sungjae Im. Four more birdies between Nos. 13-17 got him to 11 under par for the week, three ahead of Im. Scheffler had 11 birdies in his round.

“Really just a dream start,” Scheffler told reporters. “Probably one of the best starts I’ve had on Tour, to be honest with you. I couldn’t tell you a time where I’ve been lower early in the round.”

Bogeys at the par-3 8th and par-4 12th prevented any run at a sub-60 score, but it’s Scheffler’s best round since he shot a 60 during the second round at the Travelers Championship in June. That was the last time he held a solo lead at the end of a round, before losing to Viktor Hovland in a Monday playoff.

The No. 1 player in the world leads the season-long FedEx Cup standings despite not winning since The American Express in January. It’s the longest he’s gone between victories since 2023, when he won The Players Championship in March and was held out of the winner’s circle until the Hero World Challenge in December.

“My swing has felt really good the past couple weeks, especially playing at home. It was nice to get out there and get things rolling early in the round and was able to keep the momentum going and shoot myself a nice round today,” Scheffler said.

The FedEx Cup playoffs have long struggled for visibility, with the PGA Tour trying various approaches over the years to capture the interest of fans — and players. Rory McIlroy, who played alongside Scheffler the last two days, skipped last year’s St. Jude Championship, knowing he would move to the second round regardless.

Seventy players qualified for the St. Jude Championship, with the top 50 advancing to the BMW Championship next week. The top 30 compete at the Tour Championship, with the best player that week taking home the trophy and $10 million.

Scheffler has never won in Memphis, the rare PGA Tour venue that can say it’s stood up to the 30-year-old with four major championships and 19 PGA Tour victories.

This story will be updated.

Seattle Seahawks edge defender DeMarcus Lawrence told Yahoo Sports that the 2026 season will be his last.

Lawrence, 34, joined the Seahawks in March 2025 as a free agent after 11 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, then helped Seattle win Super Bowl LX in February. His family, including his wife, Sasha, and six children, still lives in Dallas, which Lawrence said was a reason he considered retiring after the 2025 season.

“It was a tough process,” Lawrence told Yahoo. “But through the grace of God, I’m able to play another year and soak it all up one more good time before I hang it up.”

Lawrence joined the Seahawks on a three-year, $32.5 million contract, with an additional $10 million available via incentives. A day later, he sparked a tiff with former Cowboys teammate Micah Parsons by saying: “Dallas is my home. I made my home there, my family is there, and I’m forever gonna be there. But I know for sure I’m not going to win a Super Bowl there.”

Lawrence did just that in Seattle, collecting two sacks, five quarterback hits, three tackles for loss and three forced fumbles in three playoff games during the Seahawks’ run to the Lombardi Trophy. That came after he had six sacks, 20 QB hits and 11 tackles for loss — plus two fumble recoveries returned for touchdowns, in the same game — during the regular season, earning Pro Bowl honors for the fifth time in his career.

A second-round pick out of Boise State in 2014, Lawrence had 61.5 sacks, 126 QB hits and 97 tackles for loss in 141 games with the Cowboys. In addition to four Pro Bowls with Dallas, he earned second-team All-Pro honors and finished fourth in Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2017, when he posted a career-high 14.5 sacks and 26 QB hits.

The Seahawks face the Cowboys in their preseason opener Saturday and again on “Monday Night Football” on Dec. 7, although both games are in Seattle. Lawrence did not face his former team in 2025.