Arena, the swimwear company, signed a two-year sponsorship deal with the Swedish butterfly specialist Sarah Sjöström.

In 2008, when only 14 years old, Sjöström burst onto the European scene by winning gold in the 100m fly at the European Championships in Eindhoven, thus beating the reigning champion Inge Dekker. At the semifinal, on the day before, Sjöström had also set the new Swedish record for the distance at 58.38, smashing the previous record held by Anna Karin Kammerling (58.71).

Again in 2008 Sjöström won silver in the 4x50m freestyle relay at the European Short Course Championships in Rijeka. She was elevated to world level in 2009 when, at the World Championships in Rome, she grabbed top spot on the podium in the 100m fly, in front of the Australian Jessicah Schipper (5623) and the Chinese Liuyang Jiao (5686). Seventh after the first length, Sjöström managed to catch up in a recovery worthy of a true champion, beating her opponents and setting a new world record of 56.06, wiping out Dutch swimmer Inge De Bruijin’s record that had stood for nine years.

At the 2009 Fina – Arena World Cup, the 17-year old won gold in the 200m FS at two stages (Moscow and Berlin). Then, at the last meeting of the 2009 season, at the European Championships in Istanbul (25m), the young champion clinched two silvers in the 4x50m FS relay and 4x50m medley relay.

Sjöström, who has signed a technical sponsorship contract for the next two years, will don the Arena logo at the side of other female stars such as Rebecca Soni, Olympic Champion in 100m breaststroke and World Champion in 200m breaststroke), Lotte Friis (World Champion 1500m freestyle) and Inge Dekker (Olympic and World Champion 4x100m freestyle).

“Sarah represents one of those pure and absolutely unique talents that every sports brand dreams of working with and we are very proud about her entry into our Team,” stated Bryan Smeltzer, vice president of marketing, Arena USA. “A key founding principle of our international Elite Team is precisely that of standing alongside and supporting young talents with the best technical equipment right from the start, in order to accompany them in their professional career, from daily training to successes in the pool at major competitions. Sarah’s outstanding professional growth over the last two years confirms the Swedish Federation’s solid commitment to the development of swimming talents and I can say that Arena is particularly delighted to have had an important technical partnership with this Federation over the last couple of years.”

Arena is distributed in the United States by Arena USA, based in Carlsbad, CA