PETE Barnes says Poole’s starlets will “relish the opportunity” to race in the Ladies’ World Individual Championship on Sunday.

Bethany Briggs, Kristina Mines, Maddie Saunders, Macie Schmidt and Anna Tuttle are due to compete in the semi-finals at Harbourside Park.

And the quintet will hope home advantage can work in their favour when they take on the best of the world’s young talent.

Poole boss Barnes told the Daily Echo: “This is a brilliant opportunity for the club’s home-grown talent to appear in front of their home crowd in a prestigious event.

“They will be racing against the best young cycle speedway talent the world has to offer and I’m sure they will relish the opportunity to compete on the big stage.

“A good performance may see them get the chance to compete in 2017 in Adelaide so I’m sure that will be a great motivation.”

Schmidt has been with the Poole club for three years and is rated as an outstanding prospect, with her British under-13 title win serving notice of her potential.

Briggs, who only started racing last year, has been ever-present in British Youth and Junior League events in 2015.

Having been part of the club for five years, Mines is due to represent GB in their ladies’ series against Australia later this year.

Saunders and Tuttle are talented prospects from Poole’s youth training programme that the club has high hopes for.

The first semi-final starts at 10.30am on Sunday with the second semi-final set to begin at midday.