Hansen Breaks World Record

He has gone where no man has before in the breaststroke, but 24-year-old Brendan Hansen desperately wanted to break the 59-second mark in the 100-meter breaststroke, a sort of mythic barrier at that distance.

Briefly, Hansen thought he might have done it Tuesday in Irvine after hearing the crowd at the Woollett Aquatic Center. But the number on the scoreboard was 59.13 seconds, a swim breaking his own world record of 59.30, set in 2004 at the Olympic trials in Long Beach.

“I turned around, ‘Awww!’ ” Hansen said, joking with reporters on the pool deck. “If that was a semifinal, I think tomorrow night, I would be able to go 58.”

Hansen will have to wait all of two weeks or so for the Pan Pacific Championships in Victoria, Canada, for another shot.

And so, the lone world record on the first day of the U.S. Summer National Championships came from Hansen, not his star colleagues, 21-year-old Michael Phelps or 17-year-old Katie Hoff, who broke her own American record in the 200 individual medley, going 2:10.05, just three-tenths shy of the world record.

Later, Hoff placed second to Kate Ziegler in the most exciting race of the night, the 400 freestyle.

Ziegler won it in a career-best 4:05.75 and Hoff went 4:05.83, also a personal best.

“I saw her the whole way,” Ziegler said. “I knew she was going to be with me the whole time. Having her the last 50 to race definitely pushed me to my best time.”

Hoff was asked if she had taken her eye off Ziegler when Hayley Peirsol, who finished third in 4:06.31, made a serious charge.

“Oh yeah, I saw her,” Hoff said of Ziegler’s strong finish. “I knew she has an amazing last 50, and I’m just really glad we both had a good race and brought it out in each other.”

Hoff had a difficult double on Tuesday and spoke about coming so close to the world record of 2:09.72 set by Wu Yanyan of China in 1997.

“Oh I’m so psyched about that,” she said. “That’s definitely one of my goals.”

Other winners were Olympic standout Natalie Coughlin in the 100 butterfly (57.78), who survived an unusually slow start off the blocks, and Klete Keller in the 400 freestyle (3:44.27), just shy of his American record of 3:44.11.

Keller was feeling some serious hurt in the last 150, saying he felt like a “kid just learning to swim.”

Not to be overlooked was Phelps, who faced a serious challenge from Ryan Lochte in the last 100 of the 400 individual medley.

Though Phelps met it, winning in 4:10.16 to Lochte’s 4:11.53, he was unusually harsh about his performance.

“In all, that was a pretty disappointing swim,” Phelps said. “I’m not happy at all at how the meet started here. I don’t know, I feel like I should have been faster, but that’s how it goes.

” ... It’s better than where we were last year but by no means is it where I want to be. The only thing that felt good tonight was the [butterfly]. Obviously, things aren’t perfect and they’re nowhere near where they should be.”

Then again disappointment is relative when it comes to Phelps and Hansen.

The Texas-based Hansen, who won a silver and a bronze in the breaststroke races in Athens, is so far ahead of the pack, especially domestically, he can take aim at world records rather than deal with tight races.

And he is now past a hip problem that hindered him last summer.

“I think it gives me a little more of a chance to focus on breaking world records than having to worry about racing somebody,” said Hansen, who planned to celebrate by having dinner with his parents, whom he acknowledged in the stands.

“You haven’t seen world records broken in really tight races. When Ian Thorpe races Michael Phelps in the 200 freestyle, you’re not really going to see a world record.”