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Things You Need to Know: Continental Cup
Published by
Sep 11th 2014, 1:42pm
A Breakdown of How the Meet Works in 16 Points
By Scott Bush
The IAAF Continental Cup is this Saturday and Sunday in Marrakech, Morocco. Here are a few key things you need to know to enjoy the event that much more.
- There are four teams: Team Africa, Team Americas, Team Asia/Pacific and Team Europe
- Team Americas consists of athletes from North, Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean nations
- Two athletes are entered in each event from each team
- Only one athlete from each country is allowed to represent a team
(ex. Dawn Harper-Nelson reps the U.S., Lavonne Idlette reps DOM despite 11 other Americans having fasters seasonal bests)
- Individual Event Scoring: 1st (8 points), 2nd (7), 3rd (6), 4th (5), 5th (4), 6th (3), 7th (2), 8th (1)
- Relay Event Scoring: 1st (15), 2nd (11), 3rd (7), 4th (3)
- There are 20 events for both men and women (40 total)
- All men's and women's points are added up for one total team score
- $2.9 million in prize money is up for grabs
- Winners of events take home a cool $30k (individuals - relays make $30k to split between all four athletes)
- If a world record is broken, the athlete earns an additional $50k
- The 10k was replaced with a 3k - athletes are not allowed to double in the 3k/5k
- At the last Continental Cup in 2010, Team Americas narrowly beat Team Europe for the title, 422.5-417.0
- There are no multi and race walking events
- Marrakech, Morocco is the fourth largest city in the country with just over a million people
- It will be low-to-mid 90s during the day - athletes need to hydrate!
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