Swimming's best will make splash in Perth

Cate Campbell and James Magnussen will headline a full-strength Australian team in Perth's biggest swimming meeting in more than 15 years.

Swimming Australia will today unveil a 24-strong team to challenge the US, China and Japan at next month's BHP Billiton Aquatic Super Series at HBF Stadium.

Campbell and Magnussen are the headline attractions of the team that will also include dual Olympic gold medallist Emily Seebohm, Cameron McEvoy and rising stars Emma and David McKeon.

The January 30-31 meeting will be the biggest swimming event in Perth since the world championships were held in the same pool in 1998. Campbell, 22, will use the Super Series to warm up for her shot at reclaiming the world 100m freestyle crown she first won in 2013.

Magnussen's tussle with McEvoy in the 100m men's freestyle will be one of the races of the meeting.

McEvoy upstaged the dual world champion at this year's national titles and Pan Pacific Championships.

This year's Super Series was dominated by Magnussen, who was named the male swimmer of the meeting after winning the 100m freestyle. Swimming Australia head coach Jacco Verhaeren said the Super Series would be an ideal warm-up for the biggest meetings of 2015.

"It gives our team a chance to get some international racing experience in before we go into the national championships in April and then the FINA World Championships in August," he said.

"We don't often get the opportunity to race such strong competitors on home soil, so I'm sure we will see some world-class swimming over the two days, especially with a number of our swimmers with world No.1 times for 2014, and the swimmers from Japan and China, and now with the inclusion of the USA in the line-up for 2015."

Thomas Fraser-Holmes, this year's 200m Commonwealth Games gold medallist, is also in the team, setting up a potential duel with 11-times Olympic medallist and gun American Ryan Lochte.

Olympic Games gold medallists Bronte Barratt and Alicia Coutts, freestyle specialist Bronte Campbell and WA's own Tommaso D'Orsogna are also in the Australian team.

The US are expected to announce their line-up before Christmas. It is hoped that Lochte, four-times Olympic gold medallist Missy Franklin and Magnussen's London Olympics conqueror, Nathan Adrian, will all make the trip to WA.

"We don't often get the opportunity to race such strong competitors on home soil …""Swimming Australia coach *Jacco Verhaeren *