DEARBORN, Michigan, September 17. WORLD-record holder and Olympic gold medalist Brendan Hansen claimed USA Swimming Athlete of the Year honors on Saturday at the United States Aquatic Sports Convention held in Dearborn, Michigan. The accolade capped an incredible year in which Hansen broke three world records and captured three gold medals at the 2006 Mutual of Omaha Pan Pacific Championships.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis award means a lot to me, but I think what means even more, are the people I\u2019m here [swimming] with,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cPlease just support us in 2008, because we\u2019re going to come out with guns firing. You have to break three world records just to be in consideration for the award.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hansen started his record-breaking year by setting the American record in the 200-yard breaststroke at the American Short Course Championships in Austin, Texas, in March. In August at the ConocoPhillips USA Swimming National Championships, Hansen set two world records, in the 100-meter breast on day one and the 200-meter breast on day five, for his fifth and sixth U.S. National titles. <\/p>\n
Claiming he still had \u201cmore left in the tank,\u201d Hansen lowered his own 200-meter breast world record at the Pan Pacific Championships. <\/p>\n
Hansen was voted the 2006 Athlete of the Year by the USA Swimming delegates in attendance at the convention. He was chosen over fellow Olympic standouts Michael Phelps, Aaron Peirsol, Katie Hoff and Amanda Weir as well as world champion Kate Ziegler. This is the first time Hansen has won the award.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the 2006 USA Swimming Award went to Audrey Berklid. The USA Swimming Award is considered the organization\u2019s most prestigious service award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DEARBORN, Michigan, September 17. WORLD-record holder and Olympic gold medalist Brendan Hansen claimed USA Swimming Athlete of the Year honors on Saturday at the United States Aquatic Sports Convention held<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n