Track and field is, by design, a team event.

Scoring is a huge part of the sport at the high school and college levels, but it’s virtually nonexistent in the professional world. Training groups replace teams, and the individual pursuit becomes the majority of an athlete’s focus. 

But fortunately, there are a few exceptions, and one happens to be this weekend in Ostrava, Czech Republic. The third ever IAAF Continental Cup is this Saturday and Sunday, September 8-9, and it pits some of the best athletes in the world against each other in a team competition featuring four regions from around the globe: Africa, Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe.

Canadian viewers can watch the 2018 Continental Cup LIVE on FloTrack

This year’s event is loaded with stars— Noah Lyles, Shaunae Miller-Uibo, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Christian Taylor, Caster Semenya, and Shelby Houlihan are just a few of the A-list names that will be in attendance, giving the meet as much star power as any high-powered Diamond League event. But since the intention of bringing all of these studs together in a team competition is ostensibly to crown the top “continent” in track and field, we resisted the urge to zero in on a handful of top events like usual and have instead scored the meet by predicting each athlete’s finish and tallying up all of the points.

The format is this: each event is scored 8-1, with the winner receiving eight points. In the relays, the scoring is 8-6-4-2 for the four teams.

Here’s how we think this Continental Cup will shake out:

2018 Continental Cup - Projected Team Scores

2018 Continental Cup- Individual Projections

We’ll have to wait for the actual competition before declaring the champion “continent” of track and field for 2018, but these numbers highlight the dominance of the Americas and Europe in track and field over the rest of the world.

It should be fun to watch them duke it out this weekend in Ostrava.