World Championships relay medallists Novelene Williams Mills and Asafa Powell will lead a strong contingent of Jamaicans at the IAAF World Challenge meeting in Zagreb, Croatia today.

Five Jamaicans, including Pan-American Games 100m champion Sherone Simpson, are down to take part in the meeting which is the second to last in the series that started in March.

It will be the second day of the event that saw IAAF Wold Championships shot put bronze medallist O’Dayne Richards place second with 21.29m, beaten by New Zealand’s Tomas Walsh who had won a day earlier in Berlin.

Richards improved on his distance from Berlin when he threw 21.05m as Poland’s Konrad Bukowiecki was third with 20.78m.

Andrew Riley, who won the 110m hurdles in Berlin on Sunday, will seek to make it two in a row, but faces a vastly improved field that includes World champion Sergei Shubenkov of Russia, France’s Pascal Martinot-Lagarde and American Jason Richardson.

Williams-Mills, whose heroics on the anchor leg of the Jamaican women’s 4x400m team led them to a gold medal on the final day of the World Championships, will line up in the 400m where her biggest threat looks to be American Natasha Hastings.

Powell was part of the men’s gold medal winning 4x100m team and will seek to add to his 92 sub-10.00 seconds 100m times as he goes after Usain Bolt’s meet record 9.85 seconds.

Powell, who finished seventh in the men’s 100m at the World championships, will go up against 39-year-old St Kitts and Nevis’ Kim Collins, who won in Berlin on Sunday and American Mike Rodgers who beat him in the final in Beijing.

Simpson and Simone Facey will fly the Jamaican flag in the women’s 100m that will also see Trinidad’s Semoya Hackett, Candyce McGrone of the USA and Jose Marie Talou of the Ivory Coast.

— Paul Reid