British Olympic Gold Medallist Rebecca Adlington, and Hannah Miley who won both Gold and Bronze medals at last weekend’s European Short Course Championships, will also be competing on home soil.

Hear the excitement building up as the UK swimming stars prepare for the competition which takes place on December 18th and 19th. Rebecca Adlington and Liam Tancock share their views and personal goals ahead of the upcoming event.

Rock and Goddard will be among the E-Stars team made up from the top British, Italian and German swimmers who will take on the full might of the US team that includes multi Olympic gold medal winner Michael Phelps.

Dubbed the Ryder Cup of swimming, the format of the British Gas Duel in the Pool is unique in that as the programme is made up of straight finals with no heats, giving competitors just one chance to perform their best times.

michael phelps

Winner of eight gold medals in the 2008 Olympics, Michael Phelps failed to make it past the 100metre freestyle heats at the Stockholm short-course World Cup.

In his first competition since the July World Championships Phelps could manage only sixteenth fastest and 1.84 seconds behind the best time, set by Sweden’s Stefan Nystrand.

Unlike many of the competitors, Phelps was not wearing a-soon to be banned-hi-tech suit and appeared to suffer as a consequence.

The controversial suit’s which were worn when there was an avalanche of record times in Rome are banned as of January 1st 2010, but perversely swimmers can choose to wear them up until that date.

Phelps did manage to qualify for the 100metres medley, where he managed seventh with a time of 53.13 seconds, still over half a second slower than the fastest qualifier Darian Townsend of South Africa.

He is entered for five races in Sweden and will go on to compete in Berlin at the weekend for the next leg of the World Cup – before joining the US team to take on Europe in the ‘Duel In The Pool’ event in Manchester in December.