  The branching ratio for the decay tau->e nue nutau has been measured using Z0
decay data collected by the OPAL experiment at LEP. In total 33073 tau->e nue
nutau candidates were identified from a sample of 186197 selected tau decays,
giving a branching ratio of 17.81 +- 0.09(stat) +_ 0.06(sys)%. This result is
combined with other measurements to test e-mu and mu-tau universality in
charged-current weak interactions. Additionally, the strong coupling constant
alpha_s has been extracted and evolved to the Z0 mass scale, giving alpha_s =
0.1204 +- 0.0011(exp) +- 0.0019(theory).
