Brooke Hanson

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Olympic medal record
Women's swimming
Gold 2004 Athens 4x100 metres medley relay
Silver 2004 Athens 100 metres breaststroke

Brooke Louise Hanson OAM (born March 18, 1978 in Manly, New South Wales) is an Australian swimmer.

A swimmer since the age of four, Hanson was the youngest swimmer on the Australian national team at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, where she finished fourth in the 200 m breaststroke. However, she would not qualify for another major international competition for eight years, until she qualified for the 100 m breaststroke and 200 m breaststroke at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. At the 2003 World Aquatics Championships, she would finish second in the 50 m breaststroke and sixth in the 100 m breaststroke.

At the 2004 Summer Olympics, Hanson won a gold medal as part of the Australian 4x100 medley relay team by swimming the breaststroke leg in a preliminary heat (Leisel Jones swam the breaststroke leg in the final). Jones' selection was the source of much discussion, and rumours spread of conflict between the two. She also won silver in the 100 m breaststroke.

Several weeks later, at the 2004 FINA Short Course World Championships in Indianapolis, Indiana, Hanson would win an unprecedented six gold medals. Five of these gold medals would come in individual events, which is a feat that no other swimmer had accomplished before in a major international meet.

2005 was a difficult year for Hanson. She was defeated by both Jade Edmistone and Leisel Jones in the 50 m and 100 m breaststroke at the Australian Championships. At the 2005 World Aquatics Championships in Montreal, Hanson missed the medals in both the 100 m breaststroke and the 200 m individual medley, and claimed bronze in the 50 m breaststroke.

Late in 2005, her coach Mark Thompson was charged with sexual assault, and was forced to vacate his position. She admitted after the 2006 Commonwealth Games trials that she had been close to retiring. She missed qualification for the 50 m and 100 m breaststroke events, where the three positions were claimed by Jones, Edmistone and Tarnee White respectively. She qualified for the 200 m breaststroke and individual medley, and claimed silver in the latter event behind young team-mate Stephanie Rice.

She swims with the Nunawading Swimming Club in Melbourne.

Hanson has also posed nude with athletes such as basketball star Lauren Jackson for a special Olympic-themed issue for the Australian magazine Black+White.

In 2006 she joined the health and lifestyle program What's Good For You team and is a presenter in the second series of the show.

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