We all like hearing about swimmer endorsement deals, don’t we? Thought so!

In a new interview with Smart Money, it is revealed that we can all expect to see Miss Beard hocking beer in 2008. This aint a dinky deal, either. Amanda will pull in 7 figures to appear in these ads.

The name of the beer company was not disclosed, but it better NOT be Heineken. If they need a swimmer to promote their product, they need to call up Lochtenator. We can even provide the number!

Yea, I hooked y’all up proper. Feel free to bow down to my greatness.

Via USA Swimming

Four-time Olympian and American-record holder Dara Torres will be featured on ABC’s World News Tonight as the “Person of the Week” this evening at 6:30 p.m. EST.

The segment will contain footage of Torres training in Florida, as well as clips of her gold-medal performances in the 50m and 100m freestyle at the 2007 ConocoPhillips USA Swimming Nationals earlier this month in Indianapolis.

At the age of 40, Torres recently reaffirmed her position as one of the top freestylers in the world when she eclipsed her own American record in the 50m freestyle after a seven-year hiatus from the sport. Torres’ time in the 50 free currently ranks fourth in the world, while her time in the 100 free ranks eighth.

If Torres qualifies for her fifth Olympic team in 2008, she will be the oldest swimmer ever to make an Olympic Team.

And for those who don’t see this in time, or won’t be home, I will capture the video and post it right here afterwards, so don’t fret!

Dara provided us with the most touching awards podium experience of the 2007 National Champs in Indy when she brought her daughter, Tessa, up on the podium with her. All of us who were on deck as photographers could hardly snap shots fast enough! Veteran photog Peter Bick even remarked that he had never seen anything like that before. It was great!

Below is one of our shots, but trust me when I say there is a LOT more where that came from! We have a lot of pictures that we don’t use/post on SwimStars.org, so we’re going to open an additional gallery to showcase those. Not sure where that will be though. Could be here! We’ll let you know!

You were so wrong. You don’t know us!

Today I stumbled across another article that very well could have been written by any of us Swim Aids. We are still very much “Team Beard”, so it’s nice to see another journalist share our point of view. To be honest, there are more that share our view than those who do not. Great minds think alike.

In any case, I’d like to quote a few passages in the feature:

There’s not a reason in the world to feel guilty about looking at attractive athletes and admiring their beauty and fitness in addition to their sports accomplishments.

Beard is fit, healthy and attractive. She showcased the human body, though not all of it.

When Maria Sharapova wears a tennis skirt on the court or swimsuit off it, it’s not demeaning. Same goes for Danica Patrick - who looks gorgeous in a head-to-toe race-car suit.

It’s not degrading. And it certainly doesn’t make anyone a bad role model. Did a few photos lessen Beard’s athletic accomplishments in the pool?

Absolutely not.

Beard isn’t a Playboy centerfold lookalike. It’s her athletic accomplishments that help make an otherwise pretty girl-next-door ultra sexy.

Success is sexy, isn’t it?

Pundits say Beard shouldn’t have posed in Playboy because she’s a role model. But what kind of parent would allow their child to read Playboy? Or leave a copy lying around?

PREACH!

Read the full piece here.

Being the major blog whores that we are, we stumbled upon Tara’s most recent WCSN blog and learned that Tara’s boyfriend Greg popped the question and the happy couple is now engaged! Not only that, but the engagement location was none other than Half Moon Bay, where a couple of us Swim Aids celebrated the 4th of July last month. (Good times, good times. There’s a funny video from that day on my facebook profile, for anyone that’s interested HA!)

Anyway, we just wanted to congratulate Tara. She, as well, is one of our favorite swim chicks. She’s always very sweet when we see her at meets, and shortly she’ll be doing a Fan Q&A on her SwimStars.org network site, TaraKirk.net.

Click here to read Tara’s account of the proposal and check out a picture of the happy couple and Tara’s gorgeous ring!

Hotmail users probably have already discovered this, but Miss Kate Ziegler is currently featured on the front page of MSN in their “Popular Searches” section. That’s pretty pimp, if I do say so myself!

The Swim Aids are big Kate Z. fans (maybe it’s just swim chicks whose names start with ‘K’?). She won us all over at Nationals, where she and her mother were absolutely wonderful to us! Most memorable was Kate’s eyes lighting up whenever the conversation topic turned to Harry Potter. Classic! We also can’t forget her pledge to bring back the phrase “plum tuckered out”. So fetch!

There’ll likely be more Kate stories here on Swim Aids from here on out. I’ve been hired to design and maintain her official website. So gotta show the love to people who, in turn, show love to me!

Go Kate!

I didn’t want people to get too excited. I doubt we’ll see another nude pictoral from Miss Beard with the exception of something like Jane Magazine’s annual nude issue. Isn’t Jane Magazine folding, though? Nevermind. I’ll get on with it!

The August 2007 issue of SELF Magazine with singer Kelly Clarkson is on the cover, shows Amanda performing a series of in-water exercises aimed to tone the body. The scans are up in the SwimStars.org gallery.

There’s supposed to be video of her demonstrating the moves and possibly an interview on the SELF Magazine website. It’s not there yet because they still have all the July issue stuff up. I’m a subscriber, so I may have gotten it earlier. In any case, I imagine the video will be available soon!