When he crossed the finish line first in the 800m final at the World Athletics Championships in Doha last year, Donavan Brazier also took down a US national record which had stood for 34 years. That 1:42.60 standard belonged to Johnny Gray, Brazier’s former coach.

The 2020 World Athletics Indoor Tour began with national records and fantastic performances in Boston, as world champions Donavan Brazier and Nia Ali kicked off their Olympic campaigns with victories at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on Saturday night (25).

World and Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya set a new world best for the rarely-run 600m to highlight the 76th edition of the ISTAF, an IAAF World Challenge Meeting, in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium on Sunday (27).

Eight recently crowned world champions along with the cream of Germany's track and field stars will highlight the 76th edition of Berlin’s ISTAF, an IAAF World Challenge meeting, on Sunday (27).

The best definitely was saved for last to conclude the final day of the US Indoor Championships in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Sunday (5).

Casimir Loxsom has admitted: “I’m as close as you can be to a 600-metre specialist.”

Previously unheralded Emmanuel Korir may not be an unknown name for much longer after setting a world indoor best for 600m at the Cherry & Silver Collegiate Invitational in Albuquerque on Friday (20).

A further 12 stars have confirmed that they will appear at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Birmingham on 5 June, including world champions Dafne Schippers and David Rudisha, organisers announced on Thursday (7).

Meseret Defar was gunning for her own 11-year-old meeting record of 8:30.05 in the women’s 3000m at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, the second IAAF World Indoor Tour event of 2016, and she came tantalisingly close to it in her first race on a track since 2013, running a world-leading 8:30.83 on Sunday (14).

Poland’s world champion Pawel Fajdek stole the spotlight from his compatriot and women’s hammer world record-holder Anita Wlodarczyk when he fired his implement out to two successive national records at the 61st Janusz Kusocinski Memorial meeting, part of the IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge, on home soil in Szczecin on Sunday (9)

Olympic 800m champion David Rudisha, world high jump champion Bogdan Bondarenko and European indoor 400m champion Pavel Maslak are among the first athletes signed up to compete at the Golden Spike IAAF World Challenge meeting in Ostrava on 26 May.

Casimir Loxsom was the star of the show on the final day of the USATF National Indoor Championships in Boston on Sunday (28) as the 23-year-old blitzed his way to a US indoor record of 1:15.33 with a gun-to-tape win in the 600m.