TWO TOP North-East athletes who were team-mates in a high-profile international relay in Bahrain this month will be head-to-head rivals on Tyneside tomorrow.

Morpeth Harrier Martin Scaife will be challenging Chester-le-Street's Stewy Bell for his title - and the £100 prize money - in tomorrow's Saltwell 10K.

Two weeks ago the pair helped a team of international runners, which also included Sunderland's British Veterans' cross country champion Brian Rushworth, take second place in the prestigious Bahrain Marathon Relay, which attracted over 90 teams.

It will be Scaife's first North-East road race since he returned from an extended family holiday in Australia, though he won a couple of cross country races as a guest at Blaydon and Barnard Castle in October.

Now he will be trying to re-establish himself on the North-East road race scene, and while his biggest rival is expected to be Bell, a former Great Britain international, he also faces a threat from two Sunderland veterans, Dave Robertson and Tom Doughty.

Robertson, a former Flora London Marathon over-40 champion, beat Doughty in a sprint finish to win the Norman Woodcock Memorial road race in Gosforth Park two weeks ago and the World Triathlon Championships over-40 bronze medallist will be looking for revenge.

Tomorrow's race again features a £25 prime award for the first runner to reach the top of the formidable Chowdene Bank, a prize won last year by former North-East junior cross country champion Chris Lamb.

The meeting starts in Saltwell Park at 10am, with the senior men off at 10.30. Late entries will be taken in Gateshead Leisure Centre.

* Newly-crowned North-East junior women's cross country champion, Johanna Jackson, looks on course to fulfil her ambition of qualifying for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne - as a race-walker.

Less than 24 hours after clinching the under-20 title at Meadowfield, Jackson, a 19-year-old student at Teesside University, became the first woman winner in the 81-year history of the Dick Hudson 8.4-mile road walk between Bradford and Ilkley Moor.

Jackson, who recently set a course record at Redcar, is one of the brightest race-walking prospects in the UK, regularly beating male opponents, including seasoned internationals.

The Middlesbrough and Cleveland Harrier said: "I love both running and race-walking but I think I can be more successful on the international stage as a walker."