A few hours ago, the Arena Water Instinct page on Facebook posted photos from their global print campaign featuring a “Dream Team” of 11 top swimming stars. This is the first time an international line-up has appeared in the same Arena ad campaign, and it is quite the diverse group!

From the press release, the “dream team” includes:

“Brazilian Cesar Cielo, … German Paul Biedermann, … Frenchman Alain Bernard, … Americans Aaron Peirsol, … Rebecca Soni, … and Eric Shanteau, … the Dane Lotte Friis, … Swede Therese Alshammar, … British sprinter Francesca Halsall, … Tunisian Oussama Mellouli, … and the Serb Milorad Cavic” (source).

Ron Judd of The Seattle Times reported today that Bremerton swimmer Tara Kirk is ready to give up on competitive swimming.

Kirk could file the papers to officially retire from competitive swimming as early as this week. However, she is still planning to proceed with an arbitration hearing, set for May, to seek damages from USA Swimming for establishing rules that appeared to have cheated her out of a spot on the Beijing squad last summer.

“This whole thing isn’t about the money,” she says. “It’s about getting the right thing done. It would kill me if this happened again