Olympic pentathlon becomes Bremer's patriot act

By Clay Latimer, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published May 25, 2008 at 10:23 p.m.

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L. Paul Bremer, Eli's uncle, receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush in 2004. Bremer was a former U.S. administrator of Iraq.

Jason Parkhurst / US Presswire

Eli Bremer guides his horse during the show-jumping portion of the modern pentathlon in Brazil.

The sight of it sent a wave of bad feeling through Eli Bremer, and for an instant, at a time when he had to train for the Olympics, he wasn't sure what to do.

Staring at a television screen in his Colorado Springs home, the Air Force Academy graduate watched as mortar shells rocked Baghdad's Green Zone, kicking up clouds of dust and blood and sending survivors hustling down scorched streets.

Was this the day, the long-dreaded moment when insurgents killed his uncle, a man whose presence in Iraq had obsessed them for months?

Eli's uncle helped him qualify for the 2008 Olympics in modern pentathlon, offering financial and emotional support during his long odyssey from Monument to Beijing.

But he's better known for his tenure as U.S. administrator of Iraq, a bloody time when his name - L. Paul Bremer - became inscribed in American history.

"It was kind of a rough time," Eli Bremer said, "having to turn on the news every day and say, 'Is my uncle still over there?' "

Eli's wartime connections hardly end there. His brother, Max, an Air Force Academy graduate, has been deployed five times in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another brother, Justin, is an Air Force physician who likely will join a special operations unit in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Scores of his former AFA classmates shipped off for combat zones, and a couple of ex-U.S. pentathlon teammates, are deployed in special operations units.

"I have a lot of friends in harm's way," the Air Force captain said.

For millions of Americans, Memorial Day is the front door of summer - a time for sunscreen and baseball and leisurely cookouts. For Eli Bremer, the day is about fallen soldiers and a war that hangs in the background of everything he does, including competing in the World Pentathlon Championships this week in Budapest, Hungary.

"I'm extremely patriotic," said Bremer, who will turn 30 on Saturday. "My dad and uncles have an unwavering dedication and sense of service to the country and their community. It's something ingrained in our family, kind of a family tradition. Memorial Day means a lot to me."

Military sport

By design, modern pentathlon is a soldier's sport. Combining shooting, fencing, swimming, horseback riding and running, the idea is to simulate the challenges faced by a Napoleonic-era soldier who has been given a message to deliver during wartime.

Picture a courier who begins on the back of an unfamiliar horse and ends up on foot fighting with a sword. After that, he has to shoot his way out of trouble, swim across a stream, then run to safety.

That's what Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics, had in mind when he invented the sport for the 1912 Stockholm Games. A young U.S. Army lieutenant named George Patton finished fifth that year, establishing a martial tone that has prevailed since.

"We really have a strong history in the Olympics," Bremer said. "It used to be that you had to be in the military to compete. It's been a good two-way street."

From an early age, Bremer dreamed of graduating from the Air Force Academy and making the Olympics. He started horseback riding at 3, joined a competitive swim team a few years later, then poured it in school, leaving nothing to chance.

He ran cross country for Lewis-Palmer High but swam for Rampart because his school lacked a team, was introduced to pentathlon at 14 and trained nearly as intensely as a world-class athlete for several sports before he was old enough to drive.

"It was very clear he had unusual drive and determination," said his father, Duncan, a lawyer who ran for U.S. Congress two years ago.

The elder Bremer moved his family to Colorado Springs in the early 1980s, settling near the Air Force Academy, where they sponsored cadets, signed up Eli for a youth swim team, became hooked on Falcons football and reveled in the school's culture of sacrifice and hard work.

"The cadets were like my big brothers," Eli said. "Everyone I looked up to had gone to the Air Force Academy. There was only one school in my mind that was acceptable.

"I still remember the first time I put on warm-ups for Air Force Academy swimming. It was one of the great moments of my life."

Rising star

Bremer also signed up for the fencing team, determined to master the fifth of five pentathlon events. After winning the 1998 junior national championship, he joined America's world junior team, traveling for the world junior championship with financial help from his uncle, who also paid his way to Sydney, Australia, to watch the 2000 Olympics.

"When you look at these Olympic athletes, what it takes to get to the top, to me it's sort of inconceivable what you have to do," Paul Bremer said during a phone interview. "We're a very close family. As his uncle, I wanted to do anything I could to encourage him, every once in a while financially, but mostly morally, telling him, 'You can do it, you can do it.' "

Eli, a freshly minted AFA grad, was assigned to Schriever Air Force Base near Colorado Springs in 2000.

He joined the Air Force's World Class Athlete Program in 2001, won national titles in 2002 and 2006 and qualified for the 2008 Olympics with a gold-medal performance at the 2007 Pan American Games. A broken foot had ended his 2004 Olympic hopes.

Though a rising star, the 6-foot Eli considered himself a soldier first, especially March 20, 2003.

"I remember this day we were in Frankfurt," he said. "We were going to Cairo. I was there as a U.S. serviceman, traveling with a guy from the Army. We checked the TV monitors and U.S. forces were massed on the Iraqi border. Nothing had happened. But when we landed in Cairo, there was an invasion going on. There were protests in the streets, riots against America. A number of people were killed."

Paul Bremer, appointed U.S. administrator in early May 2003, helped Iraq quickly rejoin the Olympic movement, but only after local and regional elections established a national committee and federations for every sport.

"They'd been kicked out of the Olympics after the first Gulf War," Paul Bremer said. "It was a very high priority of mine in terms of re-establishing Iraqi national pride. We basically had over 500 elections all over the country. It's a little-known story, but they were literally the first elections. It showed the Iraqis were back in the international community."

Bremer's efforts didn't end there.

"He called me and said, 'Hey, I'm sending some Iraqi athletes to the Olympic Training Center (in Colorado Springs). Can you make sure there's a friendly face to greet them when they get there?' " Eli said.

"I think it was nice for him to have an outlet to talk about something other than Iraq. He'd seen how much the Olympics meant to me, the experien- ces I'd had competing around the world, how the Olympics brought people together. He felt very passionately that the Iraqi people should have the opportunity to rally around their flag. It's one of the only things people in that country could agree on at the time.

"He and I have had a special bond about the Olympics for several years. He's been a huge supporter. This means a lot to him."

Family support

In less than three months, Eli's family will gather in Beijing to watch him shoot, swim, fence, run and ride a horse - all in one day, a day years in the making.

Included in the group will be his uncle, who regularly traveled to China in the 1990s as managing director at Kissinger and Associates, a worldwide consulting firm founded by Henry Kissinger.

"I'm just going to be full of pride for Eli. I'm going to be praying that he wins. But mostly, I'm proud to have him in the Olympics," he said.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

WHAT IS IT?

The modern pentathlon is made up of five disciplines:

* Shooting: Timed stationary target shooting using air pistol.

* Fencing: Timed round-robin tournament.

* Swimming: 200-meter freestyle race.

* Equestrian show jumping: Timed hurdles course.

* Running: Cross-country 3-kilometer race.

ODD, BUT TRUE

Off-target

* Gen. George S. Patton didn't care for shooting in the 1912 Games. Though he went on to exhibit his military prowess in World War II, his poor marksmanship ruined his chances to medal.

No horse sense

* Athletes randomly draw their mounts 20 minutes before the event, so an obstinate horse can create all kinds of problems. In the 1968 Games, a German competitor attacked his mount when it refused to jump. Teammates had to drag him away.

Short-circuit

* Soviet Army officer Boris Onischenko won a silver medal in the 1972 Games. But in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, he wired his sword so he could trigger the electronic scoring system with his hand and register a hit at will. He was disqualified and left the Games in disgrace, with headlines denouncing him as "Boris the Cheat."

Star power

* Actor Dolph Lundgren, who played the boxer who couldn't beat Sylvester Stallone in Rocky IV, became interested in the sport after starring in a 1993 movie Pentathlon. Several of the film's technical advisers were members of the U.S. team. Lundgren developed a passion for the sport and was named team leader of the U.S. squad at the 1996 Atlanta Games. Team leaders handle logistics for athletes.

ELI BREMER FILE

* Born: May 31, 1978.

* Hometown: Monument.

* Resides: Colorado Springs.

* Wife: Cami (married 2003).

* College: 2000 graduate of the Air Force Academy.

* Military: Air Force captain.

* Resume

Entered Air Force World Class Athlete Program in November 2001.

2007 Pan American Games gold medalist (qualified for 2008 Olympics).

U.S. national champion 2002, 2006.

Pan American champion 2005, 2006.

Consistently ranked in top 20 in world since 2005.

• May 26, 2008

  8:29 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Zappas writes:

  Baron Pierre de Coubertin was not THE founder of the modern Olympic Games. In 1894 he did found the International Olympic Committee but the first modern international Olympic Games had already taken place in Athens in 1859.

  The first modern Olympic Games, that looked like an Olympic Games, to be held outside of Greece was a national event that was held at Crystal Palace in London in 1866.

  The first modern international Olympic Games to be held in a stadium was that held at the Panathenian stadium in Athens in 1870 twenty-four years before the founding of the International Olympic Committee and twenty-six years before that same stadium was used for the 1896 Athens Olympic Games.

  Baron Pierre de Coubertin was A founder of the modern Olympic Games but not THE founder.

  Yours faithfully,
  Mike Pagomenos
  www.zappas.org
  Founder of Zappas.org
  Member of the International Society of Olympic Historians

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