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ATLANTA, Georgia, December 3. LONGHORN's Brendan Hansen emerged from a star-studded field to win the men's 200 breast at the USA Swimming Winter Nationals. Hansen clocked a 2:09.64 to give him a second breaststroke title this week.
Hansen's effort jumped him to sixth in the world this year, and second American behind Eric Shanteau's 2:09.28 from Worlds. That's nearly a second better than his Summer National time of 2:10.59. Shanteau, meanwhile, placed second tonight in 2:11.28, while Elliot Keefer took third in 2:12.40. Two-time reigning Olympic gold medalist in both breaststrokes, Kosuke Kitajima settled for fourth in 2:12.59 even though he has a third-ranked season best of 2:08.63 to his credit.
Mike Alexandrov (2:13.59), Mike Brown (2:14.04), Jack Brown (2:14.43), Ed Moses (2:14.50) and Clark Burckle (2:15.22) took fifth through ninth, while Carlos Almeida drew a disqualification.
Scott Weltz posted a 2:12.37 to win the B final. Neil Versfeld (2:12.89), Vlad Polyakov (2:14.66), Bernard Johnson (2:15.42), Andrew Bree (2:15.62), Kevin Puskaric (2:16.27), William Harris (2:16.51), Matti Mattsson (2:17.33), Adam Klein (2:17.98) and Jowan Qupty (2:19.07) snared the other consolation finishes.
Josh Prenot hit the wall in 2:15.50 for the C final win, while Valerii Dymo took second in 2:16.76. Warren Barnes (2:16.77), Marcus Titus (2:17.00), Bart Steninger (2:17.12), Sean Mahoney (2:17.50), Christian Schurr (2:18.25), Kameron Chastain (2:18.29), Alex Tyler (2:18.31) and Arni Arnason (2:18.99) made up the rest of the bonus heat.