By Stephen J. Thomas
ATHENS, Greece. August 14. BRENDAN Hansen lowered the Olympic record that had been set by arch-rival, Japan's Kosuke Kitajima, in the prelims this morning by just 0.02 of a second in the first semifinal of the men's 100 breaststroke. Hansen clocked 1:00.01 but looked disappointed when he looked up at the scoreboard.
Kitajima then won the second semifinal in 1:00.27, which sets up an exciting final between the current and most recent past world record-holder over the distance.
USA's Mark Gangloff made an Olympic final in his first attempt, winding up in a three-way tie for fourth place in 1:01.07. There will also be two
Brits in the final: Darren Mew (1:00.83) and James Gibson (1:01.07).
Ukrainian Oleg Lisogor also clocked 1:01.07 with Frenchman Hugues Duboscq (1:01.17) and Vlad Polyakov (1:01.36) also through.
russia's Roman Sloudnov, the third-fastest man in history and the first under one minute, placed ninth and failed to advance to the finals.
Men 100m Breaststroke Semifinals
Record Split Name NOC Location Date
WR 59.30 27.93
HANSEN Brendan USA Long Beach (USA) 08 JUL 2004
OR 1:00.03 28.46
KITAJIMA Kosuke JPN Athens (GRE) 14 AUG 2004
Event No: 5
Rank Heat Lane Name NOC R.T. 50m Time Time
Behind
1 1 4 HANSEN Brendan USA 0.74 28.27 1:00.01
31.74 OR
2 2 4 KITAJIMA Kosuke JPN 0.72 28.41 1:00.27
31.86 0.26
3 1 5 MEW Darren GBR 0.78 28.48 1:00.83
32.35 0.82
4 2 5 GANGLOFF Mark USA 0.75 28.86 1:01.07
32.21 1.06
4 2 2 LISOGOR Oleg UKR 0.81 28.61 1:01.07
32.46 1.06
4 2 3 GIBSON James GBR 0.82 28.34 1:01.07
32.73 1.06
7 1 3 DUBOSCQ Hugues FRA 0.75 28.65 1:01.17
32.52 1.16
8 2 6 POLYAKOV Vladislav KAZ 0.79 28.80 1:01.36
32.56 1.35
9 1 2 SLUDNOV Roman RUS 0.81 29.02 1:01.54
32.52 1.53
10 1 6 KRUPPA Jens GER 0.83 28.89 1:01.68
32.79 1.67
11 1 8 KOLONKO Rene GER 0.87 29.08 1:01.82
32.74 1.81
12 2 8 KOMORNIKOV Dmitry RUS 0.89 29.33 1:01.83
32.50 1.82
13 2 1 PIHLAVA Jarno FIN 0.82 28.96 1:01.86
32.90 1.85
14 1 7 BODOR Richard HUN 0.76 29.30 1:01.88
32.58 1.87
15 2 7 FISCHER Eduardo BRA 0.81 29.20 1:02.07
32.87 2.06
16 1 1 van VALKENGOED Thijs NED 0.79 29.22 1:02.36
33.14 2.35