USC’s Louise Hansson Triumphs in Bonus Event

Louise Hansson, a junior from USC, claimed the win tonight in the 200 IM at the 2019 Women’s Pac-12 Conference with a time of 1:52.50. Hansson went into the meet seeded first with a season best time of 1:55.49 and dropped to a 1:54.97 in prelims. She dropped over two seconds at finals and swam a personal best time and secured a NCAA A cut in what she considers a weak event in her line-up.

“I was (happily) surprised with both swims (prelims and finals). I haven’t had a ton of focus on my 200 IM this season, and it was kind of a last minute decision to swim it. As for this morning, it felt good. I went into finals knowing breaststroke is my weakest stroke, obviously, so I was trying to get ahead the first hundred and then just trying to hold on. Honestly, I was expecting to see a 1:54 when I turned around, so it was really nice seeing a 1:52,” said Hansson.

For a complete recap of Thursday night’s events click here.

Photo Courtesy: McKenna Ehrmantraut

Hansson is known for her butterfly and freestyle skills, so her choice to swim the 200 IM surprised a few people in the swimming world. She said that, “My best races just didn’t match up, the 200 free and 100 fly are back to back and the 100 free and 200 fly are back to back. It’s hard to go those distances back-to-back so I decided to pick-up the 200 IM on the first day because I’m strong in three out of the four strokes.”

Hansson has been focusing her energy on NCAAs and didn’t have a full taper going into the Pac-12 Conference meet. She’s been focusing on improving her butterfly and freestyle throughout the season, as well as narrowing in on her backstroke. She says that she’s only just started focusing on her breaststroke in the last week or so to get the tempo right before today’s races.

Hanson dominated the 200 IM and she is “very excited for the rest of the meet, and (her) best events.”

Photo Courtesy: McKenna Ehrmantraut

Supporting her at this meet, and in life, is her family. Everyone in Hansson’s family, beside her mom, is involved in swimming, with her dad being a coach and her brother and sister being fellow swimmers.

“My parents have always been super supportive of me and they never pressured me. It was always up to me if I swam or not. They’ve always been to as many of my competitions as possible,” said Hansson.

Hansson is looking forward to swimming her go-to events, such as the 100 fly tomorrow. She’s going into the other days with the goal of having fun because as she said, “When you have fun, you swim fast. You should enjoy what you’re doing. Don’t stress about it. Swimming doesn’t define who you are.“

For more information on Pac 12 teams visit here.

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Addison

5 years ago

That was a fun race to watch.