COLORADO SPRINGS — When considering the normal sequence of athletes leaving the playing field and moving into the broadcast booth, Eli Bremer is out of order.
Bremer will compete in the modern pentathlon in the Beijing Games as a member of Team USA, his first Olympics. But four years ago at the Athens Games, the graduate of the Air Force Academy was a television analyst for NBC.
After failing to make the U.S. team with a broken foot before Athens, Bremer signed on with NBC as statistician and was pressed into service at a much higher job classification after a test run as an analyst.
“I had three days of instruction, but as the event approached I suddenly got incredibly nervous,” Bremer said at the Olympic Training Center. “They gave me a pep talk and once we got going, it flowed pretty well.”
Now he is even more jazzed about actually getting to compete in the Olympics, not just talk about it.
“It was a heck of an experience in Athens, but this time I’m going to live the experience as an athlete,” said Bremer, 30. “I’ve been working for this for 20 years and they’re not going to rip off a single second from me. My goal since I was 4 years old was to be an Olympic athlete.”
The time that will count most will be his performance in five events: shooting, fencing, swimming, riding and running. All on one day, Aug. 20.
“If I have a solid shoot, a solid fence, a top-five swim, a top-five ride and win the run, that probably could win a medal,” Bremer said. “If I did that and if it didn’t win a medal, I could hang my hat on it. I’d know that I competed at the best of my ability. My biggest competition is myself. Olympic competition has a reputation for making great athletes suddenly collapse.”
Bremer, 6-feet and 167 pounds, takes a realistic look at his chances. He won a gold medal at the Pan American Games, but he looks at that only as an admission to the Olympics and not a “straight shot” to an Olympic medal.
“The Pan Am region is one of the weaker in the sport,” Bremer said. “The European region usually dominates.”
The Olympic program begins with shooting, Bremer’s weakest event. His goal is a top-20 finish, which in his view would be a great score and keep him in the medal hunt.
“As the day progresses, I get better,” Bremer said. “I’m more confident with my fence. I’m a sporadic fencer and people don’t like to face me because I’m completely unpredictable.”
The swimming event is 200 meters, a distance Bremer swam in high school at Lewis-Plamer in Monument and on the Air Force swim team. He believes he will have a shot at finishing as high as third.
A winner isn’t determined in the riding, but there are penalties for mistakes that are considered in the overall score.
Bremer’s strength is the final event, the 3,000-meter run.
“I need to win the run and I should win the run,” he said. “It’s a chase start, and the order is based on the performances in the previous events.”
Bremer believes the key at the Olympics will be the use of break time between events.
“You want to get your fluids and your nutrition,” he said. “But you also want to lie down and listen to a relaxation tape. You have to squeeze 20 minutes of recovery time out of what you have.”
Irv Moss: 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com
Eli Bremer bio
Born: May 31, 1978, in Hancock, N.H.
High school: Lewis-Palmer, in Monument
College: Air Force Academy, Class of 2000. Now a member of the Air Force active reserves after serving seven years on active duty.
Wife: Cami
Hobbies: Skiing, news junkie, politics
Aspiration: Starting a consulting business that applies the intensity of competing in the Olympics to success in the business world.
Did you know? Eli’s uncle, L. Paul Bremer III, served as presidential envoy to Iraq and was the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, leading the U.S. reconstruction effort from 2003-04.
Modern pentathlon
A competition of five events in one day: shooting, fencing, swimming, equestrian and cross country running, in that order. Total points scored in the first four events determine the starting order for the final event, turning the cross country run into a handicap event, with the leading competitor going first.
Scoring: Standards are set for each event. A competitor receives 1,000 points for equaling the standard. Points are added if the standard is exceeded and subtracted if the performance falls below the standard.
Format: Shooting (10-meter air pistol shot at a stationary target), fencing (series of one-touch bouts with épée swords), swimming (200 meters), equestrian (400-meter stadium jumping course) and cross country running (3,000 meters).
Source: Modern
