USA’s Brenda Martinez has been a prominent member of the middle-distance elite for several years. Here the 2013 world 800m bronze medallist chats about the difficulty of peaking for the US Trials and then a major championship.

For Team USA, the waiting is finally over. Though 29 years have passed since they got the chance to represent their country on home turf at a senior IAAF track and field championship, 58 of their athletes are relishing the chance to do so again when the IAAF World Indoor Championships Portland 2016 begin on Thursday (17).

Meseret Defar, Trayvon Bromell, and Brenda Martinez are the first three athletes to sign up for the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on 14 February, part of the new IAAF World Indoor Tour.

Expectations are high for US 800m star Ajee’ Wilson this summer and she will get a chance to impress in front of a home audience at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Eugene on 30 May after the meeting organisers announced their women’s 800m field on Wednesday (22).

The Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center saw another world best, a world junior best, and six world-leading marks at the 20th edition of the IAAF Indoor Permit meeting now known as the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on Saturday night (7).

Four more US stars who have graced an Olympic Games or IAAF World Championships podium – Jenn Suhr, Mary Cain, Matthew Centrowitz, and Brenda Martinez – have been added to the roster of the 20th edition of the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, an IAAF Indoor Permit meeting, on 7 February.

In his past five wins on the IAAF Diamond League circuit, Jairus Birech has looked almost unbeatable but in Brussels he was pushed all the way by European record-holder Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad. However, the Kenyan pulled out his first run under eight minutes to secure the Diamond Race title.

The 2013 season, in which she won bronze at 800m at the IAAF World Championships, made Brenda Martinez the most successful US woman at that distance in decades, and introduced her to the world as a two-lap star.

It was a wire-to-wire victory for the USA in the women's 4x800m final, and their 8:01.58 clocking gave them the inaugural event record, a national record, and a symbolic victory over the previously dominant country in middle-distance running.

Jenny Simpson and Brenda Martinez, the two US women who earned medals in the middle distances at this year’s IAAF World Championships, are the first names to be announced for the 2014 New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, an IAAF Indoor Permit meeting, on 8 February.

Russian hearts were broken inside the Luzhniki Stadium as the home favourite Mariya Savinova, known as ‘the chess player’, was tactically out-manoeuvred by the unheralded Kenyan Eunice Sum in an absorbing final.

USA’s Alysia Johnson Montano, the second-fastest runner this season of those present in Moscow, was the gun-to-tape winner of the first semi-final, winning in a fast time of 1:58.92 and naturally pulling the two time qualifiers to the final from her heat.