PARIS, (CMC) – Yohan Blake of Jamaica will be one of the athletes carrying the English-speaking Caribbean interest in the fourth World Athletics Diamond League meet for the year on Friday in the capital of France.

The former men’s 100 metres world champion will be among the starters for that event in the Meeting de Paris at the Stade Sébastien Charléty, and he will be looking to improve on his season’s time of 10.05 seconds.

Blake, 34, has been nowhere near the form that carried him to the world title 12 years ago, but he is listed among the runners to watch for the 100 dash, where the favourite is Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs of Italy.

Injury prevented Jacobs from opening his season on May 28 in the Morocco capital of Rabat and then last Friday on home soil in Florence, but he is hoping to get his campaign started in a significant way in this race.

World 200m champion Noah Lyles of the United States will be tough to beat, so too, African record-holder Ferdinand Omanyala of Kenya.

Candice MacLeod of Jamaica is also set to start the women’s 400 metres, but she is unlikely to feature prominently with Olympic and world 400m hurdles champion Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone set to battle out with Marileidy Paulino from the Dominican Republic.McLaughlin-Levrone, the World Female Athlete-of-the-Year, last ran in a Diamond League race four years ago, and she will be seeking to make a triumphant return to the circuit.

Her personal best for the 400 hurdles of 50.68 seconds is faster than the 400m flat season’s bests of all but two of the entrants for this race.

Paulino, the world and Olympic silver medallist, is undefeated in nine races across a range of distances this year, and she recently reduced her 400m PB to 48.98 secs to win at a meeting in the American city of Los Angeles.

Two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist Kyron McMaster of the British Virgin Islands will face the in-form C.J. Allen, Abderrahman Samba of Qatar, world bronze medallist Trevor Bassitt, and Frenchman Wilfried Happio in the men’s 400m hurdles.

Natoya Goule of Jamaica will contest the women’s 800m, where she will face European champion and Olympic silver medallist Keely Hodgkinson, world indoor champion Ajee Wilson, along with 2019 world champion Halima Nakaayi, Olympic bronze medallist Raevyn Rogers, and Australia’s in-form Catriona Bisset.

Numerous global champions – many from the United States – will highlight the field events, but 2019 world silver medallist Danniel Thomas-Dodd of Jamaica will be hoping to make her mark in the women’s shot putt.

She will face world champion Chase Ealey of the United States, world indoor champion Auriol Dongmo of Portugal, and Commonwealth champion Sarah Mitton of Canada.