As a first-time visitor to Australia, much less the high plains village of Falls Creek, Angelika Cichocka didn’t know quite what to expect.

Organisers of the Copernicus Cup have revealed the names of the first three top athletes set to compete at the IAAF World Indoor Tour meeting on 15 February.

Elaine Thompson won her 14th straight 100m race at the Meeting International Mohammed VI d'Athletisme, the tenth stop of the 2017 IAAF Diamond League, in Rabat on Sunday (16).

Poland finished top of the medal table at the 2016 European Championships after a hat trick of golds on Sunday (10) in Amsterdam.

Their team might be lacking their two star performers from last year, but the USA is still the overwhelming favourite to win the women’s 4x800m in Nassau.

Being the only nation in the world that holds distance medley relays with any regularity, it would be the biggest shock of the competition if the USA did not triumph in the newest addition to the IAAF World Relays programme.

The USA has medal pedigree in the women’s 800m at the World Indoor Championships – three bronzes, to be precise, courtesy of Joetta Clark in 1997, Alysia Johnson in 2010 and Erica Moore in 2012.

With just the winners of the three heats guaranteed a place in Sunday’s final, and only three time qualifiers, there was little room for error for the leading contenders – and no luxury of easing the foot off the gas.