Short Course World Champs, Day 5: Brendan Hansen Completes the Breaststroke Sweep by Winning the 50 -- October 11, 2004

INDIANAPOLIS, October 11. THE USA’s Brendan Hansen had already won the 100 and 200-meter breaststroke events, each time leading Australia’s Brenton Rickard and Kazakhstan’s Vladislav Polyakov to the wall.

But anything can happen in the 50. One slip, one bad turn, one mistimed touch can spell he difference between victory and defeat.

Anything can happen. But it didn’t.

Hansen took a lead at the start and steadily separated himself from Rickard and the rest of the field.

Never letting up, Hansen jammed the pads at 26.86 seconds to complete his breaststroke sweep. Rickard, swimming a PR 27.09, had to settle for silver for the third time, while Swedish freestyle sprinter Stefan Nystrand snagged the bronze with his 27.28, a tenth of a second ahead of Brazil’s Eduardo Fischer.

Hansen, a double world record-holder in the long course 100-200 breaststroke, said he was “very pleased with the way I swam.”

Rickard allowed that he was “pretty happy. To get three silvers behind Brendan Hansen in a meet, I’m proud of myself.”

Nystrand said simply: “It went well. My goal was to take a medal and I came in third, so I am happy.”