IAAF Diamond League champion Fedrick Dacres will lead seven Jamaicans who are expected to take part in today’s first day of the revamped, two-day, IAAF Continental Cup in Ostrava, Czech Republic.

Ten Jamaicans were named on the Americas team that will compete against three other continental teams— Africa, Asia-Pacific and Europe — in an all-final competition where points earned will determine the winners tomorrow.

Each of the four teams will have two contestants per event aiming to score points.

Dacres, who is coming off his second-best throw of the year when he won at the IAAF World Challenge meeting in Croatia with 68.17m, will team up with American Reginald Jagers in the men’s discus. Based on form, he will start favourite to add yet another win to his already impressive 2018 results.

Dacres, who won titles at the Commonwealth Games, the IAAF World Cup in Athletics, and NACAC Senior Championships, is unbeaten in his last seven outings and has won nine of the last 12.

Yohan Blake will contest the men’s 100m along with the American favourite Noah Lyles, while the Jamaican-born Jak Ali Harvey will wear the colours of Team Europe.

Danielle Williams will line up in the 100m hurdles where she will team up with Kendra Harrison, while Stephenie Ann McPherson will contest the women’s 400m.

Annsert White, who was second in the Central American and Caribbean Games and the NACAC Senior Championships in the men’s 400m hurdles, will team up with the man who beat him on both occasions while setting meet records— Kyron McMaster of the British Virgin Islands, for the Americas team.

Blake and IAAF World Cup 100m champion Tyquendo Tracey have been named in the men’s 4x100m pool, while Shericka Jackson, who is named for the 200m, is in the women’s 4x100m pools as well.

—Paul Reid