Dulce Félix will spearhead a strong Portuguese squad at the World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, on 28 March.

Portugal will send to a strong women's team to the World Cross Country Championships with the clear aim of repeating last year's performance and getting on the podium in Bydgoszcz, Poland, on 28 March.

The Portuguese women took the bronze medals in Amman, Jordan, 12 months ago, the second time in a decade they achieved the feat having also finished third in 2005.

This year's team is Jessica Augusto, Dulce Félix, Sara Moreira, Ana Dias, Anália Rosa and Daniela Cunha.

Félix, Moreira, Dias and Rosa were last year's scoring quartet at the Championships, packing well and finishing 15th, 16th, 19th and 22nd respectively.

Portugal has, in recent times, regularly provided Europe's best women runners.

They are the reigning SPAR European Cross Country Championships senior women's champions, having also won in 2008, and have been victorious four times in the last six years.

Félix showed she was in good form ahead of the Championships by winning on home soil at the 33rd Algarve International Almond Blossom Cross Country, the final meeting of the IAAF 2010 Cross Country Permit series this winter, on March 7.

The race also doubled as the national championships and Félix made it a double victory on Sunday by taking the short course crown.

Félix, 27, has a genuine rags to riches story behind her successful rise as a runner as she worked for eight years in a clothing factory after leaving school until becoming a full-time athlete two years ago.

"I had to get up at six in the morning to do my first training session, work eight hours in the factory and then put my running shoes on again. It was a very tough life, and all for 450 euros a month," reflected Félix recently.

Things changed for the better two years ago when she joined the Sporting Braga club and came under the wing of the renowned coach Sameiro Araújo, the former coach of 1994 and 1998 European Athletics Championships Marathon champion Manuela Machado.

"Dulce has many similarities to Manuela. She's a hard worker, humble and with her feet on the ground. She also looks like a natural road runner so she has a bright future at the Marathon," commented Araújo.

"However, for the moment we are concentrating on the World Cross Country Championships and this year's European Athletics Championships in Barcelona, she's looking to run 10,000m," he added.

Portugal's men's team in Bydgoszcz is also full of recognisable names with 2010 national champion Yousef El Kalai going to Poland along with Hélder Ornelas, Manuel Damiăo, Licínio Pimentel, Fernando Silva and Jose Rocha.

Good results in Poland for the Portuguese teams would also be the perfect boost for the 2010 SPAR European Cross Country Championships, which will be held in Portugal with the Algarve town of Albufeira the venue on December 12.