THREE current Great Britain internationals will go head-to-head in their bid to win the coveted senior women’s title in the 109th North-East Cross Country Championships at Newcastle’s Town Moor today.

Defending champion Rosie Smith, triumphant in three of the last five years, will be challenged by World Championships and Commonwealth Games marathon international Alyson Dixon and Olympic Games 1500m finalist Laura Weightman.

Durham City’s 29-year-old Smith, who has represented Great Britain in the 2012 European Cross Country Championships in Budapest, was two places and 12 seconds behind Morpeth Harrier Weightman, 23, in last month’s UK Cross Challenge and European Trials in Liverpool, with 36-year-old Sunderland Stroller Dixon a further 11 seconds behind in 17th position.

Prolific competitor Dixon is more at home on the roads, winning a series of local 10K races, but she has added some cross country tests to her racing calendar, winning the second North-East Harrier League race at Temple Park in October after losing to Smith in the opening fixture at East Cramlington two weeks earlier.

Weightman, who is coached by former world record holder Steve Cram, is currently studying at Leeds University and elected to run as a guest in last month’s South Yorkshire League, winning by over a minute before racing in Liverpool a week later. No stranger to cross country, she was twice Northumberland Schools champion and finished eighth last year in the European Championships Under-23 race in Belgrade.

Today’s senior men’s race, over 12 kilometres, also promised to be a close-fought affair, with Durham City’s Dan Garbutt defending the title won last year at South Shields before going on to take the Northern championship.

The 26-year-old had a disappointing race at Liverpool, finishing 65th , and prepared for today’s test by running two legs in the Leeds University Relays, coming home second.

His main challengers today are likely to be 2009 champion Patrick Martin, now with Stockport after moving from Sunderland, and Morpeth’s World Mountain running international Nick Swinburn, who was 39th at Liverpool.

Today’s programme is: 11am under-13 boys (3K); 11.15 under-13 girls (3K); 11.30 under-15 boys (4K); 11.45 under-15 girls (4K); 12.00 under-17/20 women (5.6K); 12.20 under-20 men (8K); 1.00 senior men (12K); 1.55 senior women (8K); 2.30 under-17 men (5.6K).

*Shildon’s Kate Avery, who became the first British woman to win an American national cross country title last month representing Iona College, New York, and Birtley’s four-times Junior Great North Run winner Lydia Turner, will be racing for Great Britain in tomorrow’s European Cross Country Championships in Bulgaria.