ALL-CONQUERING Morpeth Harriers lead North-East hopes in today's National 12-Stage Road Relay Championships at Sutton Coldfield.

And the Northumbrians, who won the North of England title at the beginning of the month, will be strengthened by the return of their star runner, former Commonwealth Games marathon bronze medallist Mark Hudspith.

Mark joins his younger brother Ian at Sutton Park as Morpeth hope to demonstrate their strength in depth in the 50-mile relay event, which will be contested by the top clubs from the South and Midlands.

Morpeth warmed up for the event with a fine performance in the Elswick Harriers Good Friday Relays, occupying the first two places in the four-man race.

The opposition, however, will be a lot tougher at Sutton Park, and Morpeth will be seeking to improve on last year's performance, when they finished third behind Belgrave and Birchfield after completing a hat-trick of victories in the Northern championships.

The only other two North-East contestants in the senior men's today will be Sunderland Harriers, third in the Northerns, and Chester-le-Street.

Chester-le-Street AC, who became the first North-East women's team to win the English National cross country title in London at the end of February, followed up by winning the North of England road relay championship in Blackpool.

Now the team will try to maintain its unbeaten record in the National Six-Stage Championships, facing its biggest test so far. The team will be led by mother-of-four Dianne Heneghan, who prepared with a comfortable victory in the women's race at Elswick.

* The annual Blyth ten mile road race from Cramlington to Blyth Sports Centre will be held tomorrow, starting at 10am.

*Former world junior 100 metres champion Mark Lewis-Francis leads an experimental British 4x100metres relay team in today's Penn Relays in Philadelphia.

The world famous meeting will see Lewis-Francis, Julian Golding, Dwayne Grant and Jonathan Barbour face an awesome task at Franklin Fields.

The United States, in their annual encounter against the Rest of the World, are wheeling out virtually all their top sprinters apart from Maurice Greene.