KNOXVILLE, Tenn. ? Brendan Hansen was in the middle of an interview at a pre-Olympics swimming camp Thursday when a scene a few yards away caught his eye. His 17-year-old teammate, Missy Franklin, spotted her father, Dick, who was visiting from Colorado, and ran into his embrace. Watching them hug, Hansen said, ?That?s awesome.?
Hansen?s wife, Martha, is expecting the couple?s first child later this year. It thrills Hansen to know that no matter how he fares in London, he can count on 2012 being a watershed year.
?This is my next goal in life,? said Hansen, who came out of retirement to qualify for his third Olympics, in the 100-meter breaststroke. ?I really wanted to have kids and have a family.?
Hansen, 30, said his wife, a sixth-grade math teacher, found out in May they were going to be parents. He said he was getting ready to leave for practice one morning in Austin, where they live, when she came bounding down the stairs holding a pregnancy test.
? ?No way,? I said, and she started crying,? Hansen said. ?We were both so happy. Then I got in the car and drove to practice. I was halfway to a workout and I thought, why did I leave her? The whole workout I was just smiling. I was so excited.?
Two weeks before the United States Olympic trials in Omaha, Neb., Hansen accompanied his wife to a doctor?s appointment and saw the first ultrasound of the baby.
?When I saw that little guy swimming around in there my entire perspective on life just completely changed in that minute,? Hansen said.
At the trials, Hansen won the 100-meter breaststroke and finished fourth, two spots shy of an Olympic berth, in the 200 breaststroke. Hansen?s two previous Olympics have been bittersweet. He was trying for multiple gold medals at the 2004 Games after setting world records in the 100 and 200 breaststrokes at the trials and wound up with a silver and a bronze. He placed fourth in the 100 at the 2008 Beijing Games.
His wife was supposed to find out the baby?s sex Thursday. The plan was for her doctor to write the news on a notecard and seal it in an envelope, to be opened in London when the couple is reunited after Hansen?s last swim.
?We?re going to wait until after I?m done,? he said. Hansen laughed. ?That?s the plan, anyway. In the two years we?ve been married we?ve opened our Christmas presents on the 16th of December.?
At the camp this week, Hansen shared the news with a few of his coaches and teammates, including Jason Lezak, whose wife has had two children since he and Hansen won gold medals in Beijing in 2008 as members of the victorious 400-meter medley relay team.
?It?s funny how the conversations now change,? Hansen said. ?I?m telling Jason Lezak: ?Man, you need to give me the books. You need to tell me what to do. I?m going to be calling you.?
?It?s so scary. I don?t think you?re ever really ready to have kids. I?ve gotten so much support, people telling me, ?You?re going to be a great dad.? That?s so good to hear, because you just don?t know.?
Hansen was so discouraged by his fourth-place finish in Beijing, it hastened his retirement. He started competing in triathlons for fun and was working for a sports drink company when his wife nudged him back into competitive swimming. According to Hansen, she told him, ?If you don?t try again, are you going to regret this when you?re 40 years old and we have a bunch of kids running around??
He said his answer was ?probably,? to which she replied, ?Well, I don?t want to live with that person so get your butt in the water.?
Hansen added: ?I totally overachieved with my wife. There?s not a day goes by that I?m not thankful I met her.?
When they spoke by phone Wednesday night, Hansen said, his wife offered to send him a photograph of her baby bump. He told her he? would rather wait to see it when they were together in London.
Hansen said: ?I was telling her last night, ?Some day we?ll get to show our child pictures of you with your baby bump and articles and medals from this Olympics and the little guy will see that he was sort of there with us.? How cool is that??
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: July 14, 2012
A previous version of this post misstated the number of Jason Lezak's children.
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