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U.S. TEAM OLYMPIC TRIALS: SWIMMINGJune 23, 2012Brendan HansenOMAHA, NEBRASKA THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon. We're going to get started with Brendan Hansen. As most of you might have thought, like myself in 2008, we didn't know if Brendan Hansen would be back in Omaha, but it's good to have him back. Brendan is a two‑time Olympian, 2004 and 2008 and a four‑time Olympic Medalist. Brendan how is it feeling coming back into Trials this time around? BRENDAN HANSEN: Actually it's funny when you say that because the initial of me thinking about me coming back and swimming and everything I immediately thought to this moment, where I was going to do the press conference before I actually swam.  It's been a very interesting ride, one that was rockier than I thought it would be. I thought I would get right back in the water and be good to go and swim fast and had to relearn some things and I found myself showing a lot more respect for the process of coming back.  That being said, I'm really proud of myself for standing up here today and being where I'm at and the condition I'm in and being as prepared as I am right now for the week ahead of me. Q. Brendan, four years ago you said,"The Olympic Trials and I have a love/hate relationship." Has that changed at all in your new incarnation? BRENDAN HANSEN: I think I'm pretty sure we still have a love/hate relationship, but this is a roller coaster meet for any swimmer no matter how good you are. There are going to be highs and lows; the only difference that I have versus the last three that I've been to is that I'm just‑‑ I don't want to be anywhere else right now but where I'm sitting right now.  In 2008 I don't think I could have said that. That being said, my mind is completely different, my mental outlook going into the Trials is totally different than it's ever been before, and I think it's a better one for sure. Q. Looking ahead to London, there has always been a rivalry between the U.S. and the Australians in the pool, what do you think it's going to be like in London? Who is going to come out on top? BRENDAN HANSEN: I think it's fun when there is rivalries in the sport of swimming. You see the best out of both teams. The Trials for Australia have already happened, obviously, so we were watching them closely to see where they stand, and they're inching closer and closer to that medal relay, and a huge part of that is going to be the 100 breaststroke, so I think it's important that I make the team and get on that relay to prevent y'all from winning! Sorry, just being honest! (Laughter.) Q. Brendan, you were here in the spring for a Mutual of Omaha deal, and you said in '08 that you were "fried head to toe". How do you "unfry" yourself to be in the state of mind you are now? BRENDAN HANSEN: It was a road I didn't‑‑ honestly, Karen said it, and I didn't think I would be here right now. Geez, it was like a perfect storm. I took two years off from swimming; I didn't watch any swimming. I didn't care what people were doing, and this was when the technical suits were at the highest point and people were breaking world records and everything, and I didn't know what was going on. I didn't want to be around at all with the world that I was so involved in for so many years. Then I started to do triathlons to get involved in my city, because Austin is a huge community for try athletes, so I started doing triathlons, becoming a weekend warrior like everybody else. I was eager to get that lifestyle back, and I started competing with no expectations, which I hadn't done in 12 years, and I fell in love with competing again, and found myself swimming a little bit more here and there and found myself at lunch with Eddie Reese, and all of the sudden we were coming up with a plan. Since that point I feel like all this has been predetermined and I'm along for the ride. I love that fact. I love the fact that I don't feel like I'm in total control and that has been figured out already, and I'm here because I'm supposed to be. Q. Brendan, with your reluctance to come back and the passion that you've now regained, do you think that's going to be sustained for many years or do you think you'll follow your buddy, Aaron Peirsol and retire after this? BRENDAN HANSEN: Aaron is a hard person to follow, just period, like in a line! (Laughter.) I think that I'll see how this summer goes and just‑‑ but my main concern and focus when I made the come‑back was this summer. I felt like my most unfinished business that I had in the sport of swimming and what was driving me the last 18 months was an Olympic Games and how I performed there. So I felt like my main purpose and goal for coming back was to make the Olympic Team and go to the Olympics and show the world and my country what I can do, because I felt like the two Olympics that I was in, I didn't do that. Q. You mentioned how challenging the come‑back was at times, and you had to relearn some things. What was the hardest part? What were the challenges? BRENDAN HANSEN: The hardest part of the come‑back is the racing. You know how to train, how to practice, how to get back in shape, that's not hard because everyone can do that, that's just listening to your coach and showing up. The racing aspect of it was challenging because you get on the blocks and what was so automatic to you because you've done it for so many years, once you learn a lesson and you figure out how to fix it you hopefully never have to learn it again, and that's what makes great athletes, that's what I was trying to do, when I started racing. All of the lessons that I learned in the past floated back up to the top, and here I was back at ground zero and I was challenged by things that I had learned before that I had to reteach myself. When I mentally started thinking about making a come‑back, that wasn't‑‑ I didn't think that was going to be a problem. I thought I could race, I would just go back up there and it would be the same as it was when I was nine years old, and it wasn't. It's been a process, and I feel like I kinda took it with stride, and the most important thing about it all was just to not compare myself to what I used to be and focus in on the present, and it was going to help me obviously in the future. Q. When swimmers like you and Dara Torres and Janet Evans take time off and come back, does being away make the sport more precious to you, does it give you a different perspective than when you were in it day in day out for years on end? BRENDAN HANSEN: You just named three mature athletes. I stress "mature." I think there is a maturity level when you get older and you start to appreciate stuff. I can tell you I look back on 2004 Trials, and I was 21 years old, I was a senior in college, and I was all talent and runin' and gunin' and I felt like I had something to prove. Whereas now, eight years later, I feel like I don't want to wish these two months away too fast. I want to enjoy every single minute of it, because I know in three months I will be sitting on my couch watching something completely different, and the Olympics will be over and everything I've worked for is done, so I think it's important not to wish these two months away and enjoy it and have fun with it because I don't feel like I've done that yet. Q. These Trials you're holding, you say you don't care for them or you don't like it as much, the tension that it brings? How is it trainingwise that all these other great athletes from other countries get to rest up and you have this important meet just right before the Olympics? BRENDAN HANSEN: That's a conversation that's been around way before I started swimming, when our Trials should be and when they shouldn't be. I think from the athletes' perspective we just do what we're told to do and we adapt as best we can. If you want to be in that top 1% of athletes that are going to the Olympics Games, then you have to be able to adapt to situations like this. We have known for a long time when our Trials are going to be in relation to the Olympics, and I think every athlete here is prepared for what is in front of us. We don't look at the fact that maybe the grass is greener on the other side, because I'm sure there are issues with that as well. There is a reason that grass is green over there, you know? So I think we're just excited about the opportunity to make an Olympic Team, and I'm glad it's as competitive as it is. It's a privilege to make the U.S. Olympic Team, simple as that. Q. I remember four years ago one of your disappointing swims seeing you out on the streets and you looked dazed coming out of that. How long did it take you to get past that and is that motivation at all this time around or not? BRENDAN HANSEN: Like I said before, when I came back, my whole goal‑‑ and it's been really tough but it's basically my main focus and that's to not compare myself to what I used to be. So that being said, just because I walk on this pool deck and it looks completely the same as it did in '08, I don't think about anything that happened in '08. There was great races in '08, I won the 100 Breaststroke and had the fastest time going into the Olympics, and the 200 didn't go my way. But I don't think about that stuff. All I'm focused on is I can't believe I'm here, I'm on the pool deck getting ready to race and that my badge I have says "athlete" on it and like I said, I'm proud of myself for saying I was coming back, and I'm standing here in the condition I am and how I feel like I'm going to swim this week. Q. Four years ago I remember seeing you in Beijing and you spent a lot of time with your family. What part did they play, if any, in your decision to come back. BRENDAN HANSEN: Brent, you know my brother Sean, and he was the first person to tell me not to come back. I think he‑‑ there was a point in Beijing where I was swimming down after the 100 Breaststroke, and I kept having to empty my Swedish goggles, not because they were filling up with water, because they were filling up with tears. I think it was so many emotions built up to the fact that I had gotten to that point and I knew it was over, knew that the whole experience, the whole career and everything was over. In the warm‑down pool there was a big corridor with glass and my brother was standing up there, and I came up there and I just lost it in his arms and to this day he remembers that. He doesn't want to see his brother get hurt again. I'm not back to get hurt, you know? I think I had to convince him of that. You can't make a come‑back like this without a support staff, and my parents have been, since I was a little kid. They just love me unconditionally, regardless of whether I win or lose, and that's the number one question you get asked is, "What are your parents like?" Well, that's what they do, they don't care about that. A huge part of this has been my wife, hands down. She is the reason I got off my butt and started racing again. Instead of putting one toe in the water kind of thing, she said, "It's either all or nothing. Are we doing this or not?" kind of thing, and we went after it. Q. I want to say thanks for your work with the Leukemia Research Foundation, and I wanted you to comment on your involvement there and what, if anything, that means to you. BRENDAN HANSEN: I think when you swim and you race and compete and everything there is always that opportunity outside the pool and I race for‑‑ let's say around 50 seconds, okay? For the most part, you know, you have so much opportunity outside of the sport to get involved. As you mature, and I feel like I have, I have gotten involved as much as I can. It's so hard as a professional athlete to put things in perspective because you're getting stuff for free, people are paying you money to do things, not necessarily a lot of people but you're getting paid money to do what you love to do. You stress out about the small little things in life and all of the sudden you go into a hospital room and meet kids that have seen nothing but a hospital room and your perspective goes out the window and all of the sudden all you care about is a 5 year old that's only been dealing with this. The first time I had an opportunity at USA Swimming, I had an opportunity to go into a hospital and visit with little kids, and it was a great opportunity. It grounded every one of us, and you can ask the five people I was with that day, we all go to the hospitals around us in our neighborhoods and do that because it's easy to get wrapped up in the sport and the 10th of a second and chasing the Olympic dream, and you are sheltered from what is real life situations. Those moments like that bring you right back and make you realize, hey, what you're doing, not that big of a deal. Q. Going back to your comment about how difficult it was to relearn how to race, what specifically was difficult about that? Are you a different racer than you are now four years ago? BRENDAN HANSEN: I think I'm‑‑ I tried to get back to the racing that I knew how to do, because I was pretty successful at that kind of racing. I think it's stuff like you get on the blocks and the bottom of the blocks feel weird to your feet. You dive in the water and your field of vision is completely different. There are so many aspects where you dove in the water and you knew where you were going and how many strokes it took you to get to the end of the pool. I could tell you within a 10th of a second how fast I was going out. When I finished my race at U.S. Nationals last summer at Stanford, I went up to Eddie Reese and I asked, "What was I out the first 50? How fast did I go out in the first 50?" And he said, "You went 27.8," I was like, "I would have bet the house I was out in 28.5," that's the way I felt. I knew there were things I had to get better at and tweak and fix because back when I was swimming fast I knew exactly how fast I was going out, and I knew if I was on world record pace within 5 strokes of the race, and I feel like now, I'm kinda back to that spot. It's been a different road than I thought it would be to get back to here and not one that I was afraid to take, by any means. I was excited about it and took it with stride. Q. Brendan, I'm wondering if training open water made you appreciate the pool, and if there is any carryover from that that has helped you back in the pool? BRENDAN HANSEN: Yeah, if you see me jump over the lane line this week and tackle the guy next to me you'll be like, yeah, that's the open water guy in him! Like I said, it makes you appreciate the controlled environment that we're in, and you can get to a meet and complain about the water temperature or complain about the lighting or whatever, just stuff that you can see a high‑profile swimmer complaining about ‑‑ and you do hear these kinds of things at a major international meet, but then you go to an international open water swim and there are 4500 people swimming at the same time, and that's one of the lessons that triathlons taught me is worry about the things you can control and things you can't, don't. Let it go. You could be having the best race of your life and get a flat tire halfway through the race and guess what, it's all over. It's totally out of your control. That's the kind of things I had in 2008 of things I couldn't control. I don't have those thoughts because honestly it's not worth my time. Q. There are athletes who struggle in their post competitive lives to find something to replace the passion or the feeling of achievement they had in their sport. You talked about the unfinished business that you had at the Olympics, but was any of this part of just trying to find your niche outside of sports and maybe struggling at all with that? BRENDAN HANSEN: To an extent you could say‑‑ there is definitely a grace period, for sure. When you stop swimming and then you start you're like, wait a minute, who am I? What am I trying to do? But the sport of swimming prepares you for the rest of the world. What you put‑‑ swimming is a very real sport, what you put into it is what you're going to get out of it. There is no lucky catch. You're not relying on anyone else to win the game for you. I sit here and watch the College World Series across the street, and I can't imagine being in the dugout when somebody hits a game‑winning home run; it's just not my style. I want to be on the blocks and I want to be up to bat. That being said, I feel like it's a great transition and that's why you see so many swimmers outside of swimming, they're extremely successful. Because the lessons you learn in swimming prepare you for the rest of your life, that's what we tell every 10 year old kid, the thousands upon thousands of kids that we talk to. It's like, your sport is going to teach you more than how to just swim fast. Q. Brendan, assess your chances here. How do you feel like you're swimming? I don't know if you felt like you would be swimming faster. How do you feel? BRENDAN HANSEN: I think I'll make the final. You weren't expecting a real answer were you, Paul? I think I have a really good shot. I just know that so much of this sport‑‑ and if you asked any of the other athletes that come in for press conferences how much of this sport is mental, they will tell you it way more mental than physical. I know that I'm going to the blocks with a mental outlook that I have left no stone unturned.  Knowing that that's exactly where I want to be at that exact moment, I'm going to swim as fast as I possibly can this week. I know that. THE MODERATOR: Brendan, thank you for your time, good luck this week and look forward to having you back up here. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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