Multiple Olympic and World champion but also last year Series overall winner Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden who just completed an impressive European championships is gearing up to the highly anticipated FINA Swimming World Cup to start in just 22 days.

Sjostrom, 24, doesn't need to be introduced anymore. She counts 1 Olympic gold medal, 10 World titles and holds another 6 World Records to her champions tally. She will - with no doubt - be one of the biggest stars to highlight the pool action over the next few months throughout the circuit of the World Cup (calendar 2018).

Despite anticipating the new Series with so much success and prowess in her bag, Sjostrom admits that equalling 2017 is going to be tough:

"I was in the best shape of my life during 2017."

"My main goal is obviously to always get better every year. This year was all about improving my training again, to build a good base for next year (2019) and 2020."

A big fan of both the 25 and 50m pool format and understandably the Eindhoven (NED) venue*, Sjostrom says:

"I like the short and long course mix. I really liked the World Cup in Eindhoven last year. The Dutch people just know how to organise swimming meets."

*Sjostrom bagged her first European Championships title in Eindhoven 10 years ago when she was 14, so Eindhoven holds a special place in her heart.

"Eindhoven Organising Committee provided a good hotel, lovely food, easy access to the pool, a lots of space for warm up / warm down etc."

Sjostrom, who once received the precious advice to "Remember that winning and failure is a part of being an athlete. You have to learn to handle them both", shared detailed about her current training regime.

"At the moment I share my training time between two locations: I am training 50% in Stockholm with the national elite centre with my coach Johan Wallberg and 50 % in Belek, Turkey."

"My training includes 10 swim sessions and 2 gym + 2 core /circuit / Pilates per week. I sometimes swim 14km (2x7km sessions) and the next day it can be just 5 km and gym in the afternoon. But I would say an average of 10km a day (two 5km sessions)."

Being an elite athlete isn't always easy and training can be particularly challenging.

"The most difficult part for me is to get in the freezing water in the morning, I hate it! I dislike hot water too! Also, when I feel low in the water, it doesn't even matter if I try to use my legs or arms more, I just sink more. These are the worst kind of sessions."

With 22 days to go to the start of the FINA Swimming World Cup, Kazan, Russia is finalising preparations to host the inaugural leg from September 7-9. Live Streaming available on FINAtv. A press conference during which the Trophies will be revealed will take place on September 6. 

The Series will be held in 50m format pool in the Kazan Aquatics Palace, a five-year old state-of-the-art facility on the banks of the Kazanka River built in 2013 on the occasion of the Summer Universiade and then used for the diving and water polo competitions of the FINA World Championships in 2015.

There will be a total of 32 individual events and 2 relays as below:

Daily news reports will be available on September 6, 7, 8 and 9 and the results will be available instantly on the FINA mobile app and on FINA website.