BEIJING — After the semifinals of the 100-meter breaststroke, American Brendan Hansen said he dreamt he'd won a gold medal racing from lane two, which was his lane assignment in the final after a disappointing qualifying.

In reality, Hansen only continued a nightmare run in the final, finishing fourth in a time of 59.57 seconds. Touching the wall first was Hansen's rival for the past several years, Tokyo's Kosuke Kitajima, who defended his Athens gold in the event in a world-record 58.91 seconds, the first man to swim the race in less than 59 seconds.

Somewhere between the 100 breast final and 200 breast final in the U.S. swim trials, Hansen went from the world's class breaststroker to slightly over the hill. It was in the 200 where he finished a disappointing third and didn't qualify for these Games.

And despite overcoming that disappointment and reaching Beijing with a confident energy, Hansen looked sluggish in each of his 100 breast races.

"I'm having the time of my life, which is great because in '04 I hated every minute of it," Hansen said two days before the '08 Games began. "I've always told myself that the character of a person, or at least an athlete, is discovered when they have to deal with failure. Unfortunately that was my shining moment, because it was the biggest failure of my career to date."

Finishing fourth Monday might rival that disappointment, especially since an Olympic individual gold was the only thing missing from Hansen's list of accomplishments.

He had owned the five fastest times in the history of the 100 breast entering this meet, and he was the two-time defending world champion in the event.

But in the 2004 Games he finished second to Kitajima in the 100 and third in the 200, where Kitajima also won gold.

Hansen still has a chance to add to his three career medals while running breaststroke leg of the 400 individual medley relay.

Before Hansen's race, American Peter Vanderkaay, who just missed a medal with a fourth-place finish in the 400 freestyle one day earlier, was the top qualifier in the 200 free semis with a time of 1:45.76.

Michael Phelps was in the same semifinal and finished a somewhat surprising third, but in the fourth best time overall. It means he'll race from either lane three or six in the final rather than one of the two preferred middle lanes.

The surprisingly slow swim for Phelps could have been a tactical decision given that he had to compete in the 400 freestyle relay less than an hour later.

In the 100 backstroke semifinals, Zimbabwe's Kirsty Coventry set a world record with a time of 58.77. American Natalie Coughlin, who was the second fastest qualifier, had previously held the world record.

Coughlin and Coventry went one-two in the 2004, which was Coughlin's only individual gold.