Athletics: Bowen on target for silver in cross country.

Byline: BY PHIL THOMAS

ANDREW BOWEN (Liverpool Pembroke-Sefton) collected the silver medal at the Lancashire cross country championships held at Witton Park, Blackburn where he finished second to Preston's Nathan Bibby.

LPS also claimed medals in the under-15 event in which Tom Hanlon (11), Jake Helm (12), Michael McCarten (20) and Paul Roberts (24) finished two points ahead of Rossendale Harriers to pick up a set of bronze.

West Cheshire defeated Warrington by 15 points to win the Cheshire Championships at Crewe. Warrington won the under-15 girls and boys' titles, with Stephen Broadhurst, Matt Jackson, Matthew O'Neill and Danny Cliffe in the first four places to win the latter event.

Samantha Fraser (St Helens-Sutton) was unlucky not to come away with a silver medal from the North of England U15 indoor pentathlon when she was the second Northern girl to finish.

Fraser had chosen to contest the AAAs title, which was held concurrently, and finished a very creditable sixth, smashing the club's outdoor best by 400 points with a total of 2505pts and setting two new club records in the process.

Liverpool's Simon McKevitt was third in the Garstang 10k while clubmate Keith Hatton took part in the Fun Run in which he finished fifth.

In Belfast Zoe Woodward (Liverpool) was seventh in the latest round of the UK Cross Challenge while other local runners included Andy McDonagh (St Helens-Sutton) 18th in the U15 race and the Wirral pairing of Tom Madden and Jordan Donnelly, who were 23rd and 17th in the U17 and U20 races respectively.

This week's major event is the Merseyside Championship which takes place at Wavertree Sports Centre. As Helen Lawrence is concentrating full time on tria-thlons and Richard Burney is still recovering from injury it seems likely that there will be two new champions in the senior races, with Jenny Clague and Rob Berry the hot favourites.

Other potential winners amongst the younger age groups are Rhea Ellis (SouthportWaterloo), Joe Magee (Wallasey), Jonny Mellor (Liverpool) and David Forrester (St Helens-Sutton).

Liverpool are favourites for the women's team titles and the senior and junior men's awards.

There are North West talent and potential squads meetings this weekend and a call has been put out for athletes to attend the Merseyside County squad on the 28 January following a poor attendance last time. Unfortunately, the date clashes with the Northern cross country championships.

A number of runners who attended last weekend's Garstang 10k were unable to compete because the race was full. Athletes wanting to run in the Helsby Half Marathon will also be disappointed as the organisers have also announced that race numbers have reached the maximum permitted.

The proposed transfer of power from the AAAs to UK Athletics has been delayed and the Northern Counties have indicated their registration scheme will continue into the 2006/ 7 season. Both bodies will remain in existence as competition providers.