SPRENGER CHASES BIG BUCKS ON FINA/ARENA WORLD CUP CIRCUIT

Christian Sprenger's triple gold medal start to the FINA/ARENA World Cup in Brazil last week has seen the Olympic breaststroker enter the remaining six meets of the lucrative series as he chases the $US100,000 overall prizemoney.

Sprenger kick-started his World Cup campaign with wins in the 50, 100 and 200m breaststroke finals in Belo Horizonte.

He will be joined for meet two of the Series in Durban this weekend by fellow Australians Marieke Guehrer, Jackie Staples, Kyle Richardson and Sophie Edington.

They will then be joined by Olympic gold medallist Oussama Mellouli, Sweden's Olympic finalist Stefan Nystrand and 16 members of the Australian Olympic team for the Sydney leg, to be presented by Telstra, on October 25 and 26 at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre.

Sprenger asked Swimming Australia to enter him into Singapore, Moscow, Stockholm and Berlin, which will see double points awarded and could well determine the overall prize winners.

The pair won the prestigious High Pointscorers Awards with stunning performances on day two of the Belo Horizonte meet.

Sprenger leads on 25 points from Russian Stanislav Donets (20) and Brazil's Olympic champion Cesar Cielo (16) with Guehrer in front of the women's pointscore on 25, from Swedish pair Josefin Lillhage and Therese Alshammar.

In Brazil, it was Guehrer who added to her day one gold in the 100 metres butterfly with eye-catching wins in both the 50m butterfly and 100m freestyle - her butterfly time the seventh fastest all-time and just 0.27 outside the world record set earlier this year by fellow Australian Felicity Galvez.

The Athens Olympic backstroker clocked 25.63 to score 991 points - lowering the colours of nine-time world short course champion Alshammar in the best swim of the meet.

Guehrer finished the weekend with three gold medals and a silver from four swims.

Sprenger added the 100m gold medal to his day one wins in the 50 and 200m, equalling his personal best time of 58.19, set in Canberra prior to the Olympics and scoring 981 points to top the men's FINA pointscore.

Sprenger's time was 0.72 secs outside Ed Moses' long standing world record set at the Stockholm World Cup in 2002.