CARNIVAL-GOERS will have the chance to beat Northwich running ace Paula Radcliffe's 2002 Commonwealth Games 5,000m record later this month!

The parents of the former Kingsley Primary School pupil will open the village's Olympic Carnival on Saturday, May 22, and her grandmother will be setting off the relay race, set up by Paula's former trainer George Bunner.

George, 72, said teams of 10 children from the Harriers and local schools would run in a continuous relay, as well as two pub teams.

He said: 'No individual school team has ever beaten Paula's record. It's tough - but it's not a bad idea to realise how fast that girl can run.

'Every 200m we tell them how far behind Paula's record they are, or if they are ahead of it. It gives them a bit of a surprise.' Long-distance runner Paula Radcliffe, who was born in Davenham and lived in Barnton, attending Little Leigh Infant School, before moving to Kingsley, will be unable to go to the carnival because she is in training for the Olympics.

George, who is chairman of the Amateur Athletic Association, said: 'We're celebrating Paula's achievements. She's a wonderful role model. She started as a little girl on a field like at Kingsley.'

He said he was only 'one rung of a many-runged ladder' on Paula's route to success: 'What we did with Paula was to help her to love her sport so there was a future for her.'

At the carnival there will also be other games for smaller children and a classic car rally. Forty cars will lead a procession through Kingsley, followed by Olympic-themed floats, to the West-brook playing fields, arriving at about noon.

In the arena, attractions will include a steam train, pig roast, stalls and bouncy castles. There will also be people on stilts, a brass band and bird of prey demonstration.

Ruth Kingston, carnival committee member, said: 'We are expecting a lot of interest in the Radcliffe family so we have set up more car parks than normal, one at the county primary school, one down Hollow Lane where it meets Ball Lane, and there will be disabled car parking on the playing field.'

The carnival proceeds will help to buy sports equipment for children in Malawi who suffer from Aids, where a friend of George's is doing a voluntary service overseas placement, and toward setting up a youth centre for Kingsley and surrounding areas.