Let's help get Brendan Hansen motivated!

This weekend, in celebration of Brendan Hansen's big comeback, I say we re-start the argument about Kitajima's dolphin kick during his pullout at the 2004 games.  Brendan Hansen gave a clinic for my club a few years ago and it was hard to hear him talk about it.  We all know that moment has to be a big personal motivator.  Watch closely.  You can actually see Kosuke inch ahead after the oh so obvious illegal kick.

For those who don't remember, the one dolphin kick during the breaststroke pull-out was illegal until Kosuke Kitajima snuck one in on his way to Gold at the 2004 Olympics.  When they realized that they had not DQ'd him when they should have, they decided to just go ahead and change the rules to say that one dolphin kick is okay after all.  Yet another example of utter silliness in the governance of swimming, and it cost Hansen what would have been his only individual Olympic Gold.

I think that giving him and all of his fans and haters a chance to watch this thing over and over in slow motion while throwing down an argument with anonymous comment after comment is the perfect way to get this comeback started on the right foot.  Don't ya think?!

Come on... Hansen totally got screwed, right?  I mean, NBC gave us all a pretty darn good view of this pull-out.  It was kind of like having your opponent bring brass knuckles to a boxing match only to have the referee say "Hey, why not?  Let's change the rules so he can use them.  What?  You didn't bring your own set of brass knuckles?  Sucks for you!"

I think that the best part of Hansen's comeback is that Kitajima is still on his A game and we might be looking at a pretty hot rematch with some real redemption on the line.