Peter Bol has taken a giant stride forward on his return to competition in a tumultuous year by smashing the 800m qualifying mark for next month's world championships in Budapest.
In his fourth race back after having a provisional doping ban lifted, Bol clocked a flying time of one minute 44.29 seconds at a meet in Barcelona on Wednesday night (early Thursday AEST).
He joins training partner Joseph Deng - who preceded him as the national record holder - as the only Australians to have bettered the tough 800m qualifying standard of 1:44.70 for the world titles beginning in the Hungarian capital on August 19.
The 29-year-old Bol had endured a horror start to 2023.
The Tokyo Olympics finalist and Birmingham Commonwealth Games silver medallist was informed in January he had failed an out-of-competition drug test the previous October when he recorded an elevated level of erythropoietin (EPO).
He was provisionally suspended on January 20 but the ban was lifted the following month when his B sample returned an atypical finding, meaning it was neither positive nor negative.
An investigation by Sport Integrity Australia is ongoing.
Bol then had to overcome groin and stomach injuries before making his return to racing in June.
His run in Barcelona - when he finished second behind Kenyan Kelvin Kimutai - also counted as a qualifying mark for next year's Paris Olympics.
It was less than three tenths of a second shy of Bol's personal best of 1:44.00 set last year in the French capital.
