A ceremony was held in Split on Friday evening to mark the opening of the Continental Cup, the biggest athletics competition to be held in Croatia in the last 20 years.
The event will be held in the city's Poljud stadium on Saturday and Sunday. The Poljud stadium was the venue of track-and-field competitions at the 1979 Mediterranean Games, and in 1990 it hosted the European Athletics Championship.
In the next two days, around 400 top athletes will compete at Poljud, representing their continents.
Among them are Croatia's best female athletes, the high jumper Blanka Vlasic and the discus thrower Sandra Perkovic, representing Europe.
One of the competitors is this season's fastest sprinter, Tyson Gay of the United States, who will compete in the 4x100 metre relay.
