THE Exeter Harriers' trio of Anna Rust, Beth Camp and Emily Bliss head a strong Devon squad in the senior girls' race at the South West Schools' Cross Country Championships this Saturday.

All three teenagers will fancy their chances of making the top 10 at Truro School with, on paper at least, the senior girls' race looking wide open.

Colyton Grammar School's Naomi Speake should do well in the inter girls' race and will be joined by Isca College's Rosie Chamberlain.

The Sidmouth College pair of Ellie Stone and Katie Vine are included in the junior girls' squad and will benefit enormously from the experience.

"As far as I'm concerned the signs are good for the championships and I'm hoping to run out," said Merson. "I'm not in as good a shape as I wanted after missing training in the last three weeks but I'll give it a go."

Top local runner in the men's race was Okehampton Running Club's Roger Voaden in 23rd place, with the SWRR pair of Steve Rosser and Kathleen Sincock also making the top 100 of the 568 finishers.

Exeter University student Jack Bancroft clocked a personal best of four minutes 01.35 seconds at the Midland Counties Indoor meeting in Birmingham. In the sprints, fellow students Alex Somonon ran 8.04 seconds with Rebecca Courtenay clocking 8.30 seconds for the 60m and 27.16 seconds for 200m.

There is a race limit of 250 and for further details see the event website at: www.thegreatwestrun.co.uk