SIX star athletes have won county vests following their performances in the Greater Manchester Schools' Athletics Championships.

They are Leigh Harriers' sisters Lauren and Rebecca Howarth, Hannah Warburton, Tashon Galleger, Kellie Thornton and Amanda Fearnley who will take on the cream of the northern counties' best in the Inter-County Schools' championships in Birmingham.

At Longford Park, Warrington, Lauren, who has played second fiddle to multi-champion Hannah all season, turned the tables running her best race of the season in the junior girls' 1500m.

She clocked 4min 54.2sec to finish second and beat Hannah into third place in 4min 55.7sec.

Tashon competed well to snatch runner-up spot in the senior 400m in 52.2sec and third in the 200m in 23.2sec.

Rebecca recorded her second fastest 1500m of the season 4min 56.5sec to take second in the intermediate event.

Kellie in only her third 300m run collected an outstanding intermediate silver recording 44.1sec, and completing the team Amanda also finished second in the senior 3000m with a time of 11min 48sec.

Other harriers performed well including Alex Urmston who ran two personal best times for third in the senior 400m in 52.5sec and fifth in the 800m (1min 58.2).

Tom Boardman ran a pb in the senior 800m (1min 57.6) and a season's best in the 1500m (4min 10.1).

Neil Pendlebury collected bronze in the senior 3000m in a pb 10min.07 and Louise Boardman just missed a medal in the inter girls' 300m after recording 46.4sec.

Sprinter Clare Thompson just missed the medals finishing fourth in the inter 100m in 14.1sec.

Running in the Merseyside Schools' Championships Tom Henders just missed his best time and had to settle for bronze in the inter 1500m event in 4min 22.1.

LEIGH Harriers' fell running queen Dionne Allen is on course for an England vest.

She took a giant step towards her goal in the Helvellyn English Junior Championships at the weekend.

In the girls' U16 event over a 2.5 mile circuit with a climb of 1,000ft Dionne reached the summit first and despite a fall on the descent still ran out an easy winner and broke the course record.

With just two races left Dionne looks set to take the U16 title.

Also running well on the fells is Danielle Allan who completed the course in 19min 48sec for fourth spot.