IAAF World and Olympic 400m silver medallist Shericka Williams will lead four Jamaicans down to participate on today’s first day of the two-day IAAF/VTB Bank Continental Cup in Split, Croatia.

Williams, who has a season-best 50.04 seconds for fifth on the IAAF performance best list, will go up against the world leader Debbie Dunn of the United States (49.64 seconds) and Russia’s Tatyana Firova (49.89 seconds).

Ricardo Chambers, who ran a personal best 44.54 seconds, will join world leader and race favourite Jeremy Wariner representing the Americas team in the men’s equivalent.

Nickesha Wilson will contest the women’s 400m hurdles where her season-best 55.07 seconds gives her the fourth fastest time in the field behind leader Russian Natalya Antyukh’s 52.92 seconds.

National record holder, Kenia Sinclair, will contest the 800m final and could force her way into medal contention as she is coming off a season best 1:58.59 last week.

The Continental Cup replaces the previous traditional season-ending IAAF World Cup and will see athletes competing for four area teams — Africa, Americas, Asia/Pacific and Europe.

Two athletes per team will compete in each event except for the 1,500m, 3,000m, 3,000m steeple chase and 5,000m where three athletes may enter with two able to score points.

According to the competition rules, the team scoring the most combined (men and women) points will be declared the winner.