TEESSIDE teenager Sophie Dewell won the UK's first women's decathlon yesterday on her multi-events debut.

The 18-year-old Middlesbrough and Cleveland Harrier had to pull out all the stops to clinch victory in a nail-biting finish to the event at Wentworth Park, Hexham.

After two days of competition Dewell was only 39 points ahead of 19-year-old Liz Edwards, of Wrexham, going into the final event, the 1500m.

Although she had never raced in the four-lap event previously, the Stockton Sixth Form student beat her rival by an emphatic 150 metres to take the title.

Dewell, the North-East junior pole-vault champion, went into the event as a complete novice and made her competitive debut in four other disciplines, the javelin, long jump, shot and hurdles.

But she came through with flying colours, though her Welsh rival proved stronger in most of the field events.

Dewell had hoped to gain a bigger advantage in her specialist event, the pole vault, but she found herself tired after seven previous events and cleared a disappointing 2.50m, only 20 centimetres more than Edwards.

The Welsh teenager then proceeded to narrow the points gap by throwing the javelin 26.42m compared to Dewell's 12.41m and three quarters of an hour later they lined up for the 1500m.

Dewell said: "I'm delighted to have won, but it was very tiring to do ten events in two days, many of them for the first time.

"But I just stuck at it and I must say that I have thoroughly enjoyed the competition and I'll certainly be doing it again."

Dewell, the first North-East girl to reach the English Schools Championships pole vault final, finished the decathlon with 4,008 points, with Edwards scoring a total of 3793 points.

l Great Britain international Brian Rushworth anchored Sunderland to their 12th victory in 13 years after a ding-dong battle with arch-rivals Morpeth Harriers in the region's opening cross country of the season at Farringdon.

Rushworth, who will attempt to win his 11th North-East cross country championship this year, was in sparkling form in the senior men's relay over a testing course.

Taking over in third place behind Morpeth and Tyneside club Elswick, the 38-year-old lecturer quickly overhauled the second runner, veteran Ieuan Ellis, and went after leader Richard Kay, who had a lead of 21 seconds.

Rushworth caught his man approaching the halfway mark and stormed on to win by 13 seconds to lift the trophy which stood in the Sunderland clubhouse for ten years in succession until Morpeth broke the sequence two years ago.

Elswick, who had shot from eighth place to second, thanks to the fastest run of the afternoon by David Anderson on the penultimate leg, were later disqualified from third place when it was discovered that Ellis had already run for his club's veteran team, helping them into second place, again behind Sunderland.

Gateshead's Karen Hind won the women's race, beating defending champion Morag McDonnell by 40 seconds.