EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Olympics Swimmer Brendan Hansen Lost His Olympic Gold Medal

Brendan Hansen, 30, who won the top spot in the 100-meter breaststroke at the U.S. Olympic trials, secured a third trip to the Olympics in London this month, after previously nabbing two gold medals, one silver and one bronze in the previous 2004 Athens Summer Olympics and the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games.

Perhaps Hansen is best known for letting one medal slip just beyond his grasp — literally — when he lost the victory badge he'd won from the 2008 Olympic Games on an airplane flying from Philadelphia to Austen. "I went through the TSA and they'd taken my medal out of my backpack," Hansen said in our exclusive video interview. "When they got done with it, they just stuck it in a water–bottle slot on the side." The medal slipped out of Hansen's backpack as the plane was ascending and "rolled about six rows back," landing on the floor beneath another passenger. Luckily, she found it after the flight, contacted Hansen on Facebook, and returned it to him the next day, but "for [those] 16 hours I was pretty much sweating it," Hansen said of his temporarily missing Olympic gold.

When Hansen's not competing for medals and losing them, he likes to hit the outdoors. "I find myself at lakes, camping, just as far away from the media and the hectic lifestyle that i do live …. I find myself coming back Monday morning for practice recharged and ready to go when I've spent a whole day and a half outside in the outdoors."

Every Olympic champion needs to unwind after the games, so what does Hansen look forward to once he can relax his protien-shake and 6000-calorie-a-day regimen? "I don't have a sweet tooth or anything like that," Hansen admitted, "So I'll probably just — yeah, I'll probably crack open a beer."

Watch Uinterview's exclusive video interview here:

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