Hello faithful blog readers. It has been a long time since I routinely blogged, but that is about to change. Much has been going on, and I am eager to bring everyone up to speed.
There will be four World Cups this year stretched out around the world. Last weekend, the World Cup season started with a World Cup in Charlotte North Carolina. I think I can safely say that I have never had such a difficult start to a season as the preparation for that competition. Here is the Reader’s Digest version:
I was very excited that my friend Steffen Gebhardt from Germany agreed to come out and train with me this February. Steffen and I go way back training with and competing against each other. He is a monster training, and I love the challenge of working out with him. This seemed like a great start to the Olympic qualifying season.
About three weeks before the first World Cup, I started coming down with a cold. I had not been sick all year, so I guess my time was up. And when I got sick, I got clobbered. I was able to train through it somewhat, but the cold turned worse after about 10 days, and I had to start a course of anti-biotics. February is always a tough month for training, but being sick really put an exclamation point on a difficult training month.
About 10 days before we were scheduled to leave for Charlotte, Steffen and I went down to a large park near the track at Colorado College to slog through a ten mile run. We had been training all day, so we had a good chunk of our equipment in the back seat of my four door pickup. That is not unusual for us as you pretty much use your vehicle as a locker room when training full time.
The run was uneventful as Steffen and I explored a new section of a trail I’d never run before. Given the unseasonably warm weather, we were glad for the extra motivation while we hit one of our final distance training runs before competing. When we returned to where we parked, Steffen and I stretched for a few minutes before getting back into the truck. When I approached the truck, I noticed broken glass in the bed. My first thought was that some glass was thrown into the back. Then I saw the back window was broken. My next thought was that a tree branch had fallen through my window (we were parked under a large tree). Colorado Springs and the place we were parked is very safe, so it did not occur to me that this was anything other than an accident until I noticed a huge gash down the side of my rear passenger door. Upon opening the truck, we realized that we had been robbed and all of our training gear had been stolen.
It took about 30 seconds to do a quick survey and realize that everything from our equipment to my wallet and new iphone were missing. Then it hit me… my pistol was in the truck as well. Of everything I use in a competition, the pistol is handily the least replaceable piece of equipment. I shoot an LP@Anschutz pistol modified with an IQ laser shooting canister and a personalized grip. Replacing the pistol exactly is impossible and coming up with a close proximity would take at least two months and about $4,000.
A bystander allowed me to use her phone to call the police who told me they do not respond to the scene of any car break-ins. I asked if it made a difference that a firearm was stolen (even though these are converted air pistols, they retain an international firearm stamp and must be shipped, bought, and sold in accordance with firearm laws). In essence, the police told me it could take weeks before any effort could be put into recovery of the pistol. It was Monday and I had 9 days before leaving for the first World Cup.
I don’t want to go too much into what followed (Google “eli bremer pistol” for the full story), but basically the story went viral. By Tuesday, the story went national “Olympian’s pistol stolen.” By Wednesday, it was in the print edition of USA Today; and NBC Nightly News was getting ready to run it as a national story (I guess writing for USA Today and working for NBC Olympics had more of an impact than I thought). Again, abbreviating the story substantially, a tip came in from all the media coverage. At about 2:30 on Wednesday afternoon, the police called to tell me that my pistol had been recovered and the suspect was in custody. By 4:30, Steffen and I had been to the suspect’s residence and helped identify most of our stolen belongings. There was a substantial amount of other clutter at the location, most of which appeared to be stolen. The police were grateful that they had apprehended the suspect so quickly, recovered a stolen vehicle in his possession, and were ready to make another arrest with the information they already learned. As Steffen and I headed home with the stench of drugs in my truck that permeated all our recovered belongings. For once, it seemed like a blessing that the back window was missing as we aired out our belongings. When I checked the pistol, the trigger had been broken, but everything else worked fine. I remain extremely grateful for the media’s quick action, the thousands of people praying, and the one individual who I cannot identify but knows they played a very special role in identifying the suspect. Thank you to that person, and I look forward to finding a way to express my gratitude when I return home.
On top of the stolen pistol (and dealing with police and media) and a whopping cold, an old injury in my left leg blew up on me. Within days, it was so bad that I could not walk up stairs or run on the flat (thank goodness for treadmills with a decline function). Fortunately, Dr. Mike Leahy and Dr. Gary Wood at Champion Health gave me aggressive treatment. Despite this, when I left for Charlotte last Wednesday, I was not sure if my leg would hold up through the fencing, much less the running.
Thankfully, things came together enough at the World Cup; and everything held together. My swimming and running were slow, but my fencing and shooting were very solid. In the end, I finished 15th in my semi-final, not enough to advance to the final in the largest competition ever held outside of Europe. But it was a solid day despite all the trials that led up to it, so for that I am grateful.
The high point of the competition in Charlotte was family and friends coming to visit. My parents and older brother came out. Cami’s parents and both her sisters and their husbands (and two nephews) came to watch as well. We also had many friends show up, so it was fun to spend time with a lot of folks I have not seen in a while.
On Monday after the competition, we left for Rio Brazil. It was a 15 hour trip but only a one hour time change. After over 40 trips to Europe in my career, I always welcome long flights that don’t have huge jetlag associated with it.
Because this has gone too long already (my fault for taking too long to post an update) I’ll fill everyone in on the details of this competition tomorrow. In short though, I am in Semi-final A as the lone American. Sam is in Group B, and Will and Dennis will be in Group C. After all three of our women failed to make the final today, it would be good if at least two of the US men can final tomorrow. There are 105 men competing inclusive of nearly all the top 50 athletes in the World. Only 36 can final, so it will be a tough day.
That’s all for now. More from Rio tomorrow…
