OLYMPIC TRIO KICK START FINA/ARENA WORLD CUP SERIES
SYDNEY, October 10: Olympians Christian Sprenger, Sophie Edington and Marieke Guehrer will kick start the Telstra Dolphins Australian Swim Team's seven-meet FINA/ARENA World Cup tour in Belo Horizonte, Brazil this weekend.
The three-day meet will feature a small but select group of Australians that also includes rising stars Kyle Richardson (Qld) and Jackie Staples (South Australia), under veteran coach Bernie Mulroy.
The team will go on to contest the second meet in the seven-event $US400, 000 series in Durban (October 18-19).
They will then join Tunisia's Olympic golden boy Oussama Mellouli and Australia's Beijing golden girls Bronte Barratt and Emily Seebohm in the Sydney leg, to be presented by Telstra, at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre (October 25 and 26.)
Sprenger, a silver medallist as a heat swimmer in Australia's 4x100m medley relay in Beijing, will be one of the main players in the 50,100 and 200 metres breaststroke.
Edington, the world record holder for 50m backstroke long course, will start a serious World Cup campaign in the opening three meets before finishing off the series in Stockholm and Berlin.
Guehrer, a member of the 2004 Athens Olympic team, is mounting an exciting comeback to international swimming after several encouraging performances over both long course and short course over the last 12 months.
She was one of the stars of the recent Telstra Australian Short Course Championships in Melbourne, winning both the 50 and 100m butterfly and 100m freestyle and finishing third to young guns, Olympic bronze medallist Cate Campbell and Olivia Halicek.
Guehrer admits she is in the best form of her career and she aims to string together as many good races as she can throughout a series that will see her contest six of the seven meets, culminating in Moscow, Stockholm and Berlin.
"It's good to get back, I am happy in training, balanced throughout my life and I'm just loving it again," Guehrer said.
"I am doing two subjects at university, I am swimming, I work 20 hours a week and I have my own swimwear business online so I'm busy and I work best when I am under that sort of pressure.
"At times in the past I have concentrated solely on swimming and put all my eggs in one basket and I have found that doesn't work for me."
This year's new-look series will see the top male and female swimmers receive $US100, 000.00 with a $US40,000.00 world record bonus pool.
The top male and female performances from each meet will each receive 25 points, with 20 points for a world record and double points for the final meet in Berlin.
Podium finishers at each of the rounds will receive $US1500, $US1000 and $US500.