Looking to Relight the Flame : Olympics: Brian Blutreich, who failed to qualify for U.S. team in the discus, might still get to compete in Barcelona.

Brian Blutreich thought his Olympic hopes had flickered out last month when he finished fifth in the discus at the U.S. trials in New Orleans. Only the top three finishers in his event made the U.S. team.

But when trials winner Kamy Keshmiri said in late June he might withdraw because of an injury and subsequently was suspended from international competition July 14 for failing a drug test, Blutreich’s hopes suddenly were rekindled.

They moved closer to the front-burner when Blutreich met the Olympic qualifying standard of 207 feet 4 inches by a July 8 deadline. Carlos Scott, the fourth-place trials finisher, failed to make the standard.

Blutreich took a huge step toward the Olympics today when he flew with the U.S. track and field team from Florida to France, but he still wasn’t 100% sure he’d get a chance to throw the discus under the Olympic flame in Barcelona.

A U.S. Olympic Committee processor called Blutreich Sunday morning and told him Keshmiri was going to appeal the suspension. Blutreich wouldn’t find out whether he was on the team until he was in France.

“So they are going to fly me over to France and let me know there,” Blutreich, a former Capistrano Valley High School and UCLA standout, said Sunday. “It might be done (putting him officially on the team) by Tuesday (today). . . .

“It will work out--I know it will. But it sure would be nice to know before I head over there that I’m on the team.”

Blutreich is getting used to such chaos and confusion. He practically had to jump through Olympic hoops to get a shot at a trip to Europe.

Between Keshmiri’s announcement of his possible withdrawal from the Olympics and his drug suspension, Blutreich and Scott were informed by the U.S. Olympic Committee they had until July 8 to meet the standard to fill the possible vacancy on the team.

But Blutreich, 25, had mistakenly believed he had until July 10 to achieve the standard. He planned on competing in an all-comers meet July 9 at Cal State Long Beach.

When he learned July 9 would be too late, he hastily arranged with the director of the all-comers meet to have the discus throw July 8, and made sure the meet was certified by The Athletics Congress, the governing body of track and field in the United States.

On his fourth attempt, with two remaining, Blutreich met the qualifying standard, throwing a personal best of 209-4, more than four feet farther than his previous best and about nine feet farther than his trials throw of 199. Scott failed to make the standard.

“I had been throwing well the previous two throws and just missed the standard with throws in the 202 to 203 range,” Blutreich said. “I really got a good one and I knew it was close.”

That moved him a lot closer to Barcelona, where Blutreich has good reason to believe he will compete. An International Amateur Athletic Foundation official said last week in London that Keshmiri’s appeal would not be heard until the Olympics conclude Aug. 9, making it virtually impossible for him to regain his spot on the team.

If all goes well for Blutreich, he will realize a dream that began when he was a boy growing up in Mission Viejo.

Blutreich watched the 1976 Summer Olympics on TV and wanted to be on the U.S. team.

“I loved baseball at the time (as a 9-year-old) and I remember thinking to myself, ‘I’d really like to compete in that.’ I didn’t realize they didn’t have baseball in the Olympics.” Blutreich, who started his track and field career as a sprinter, was introduced to the shotput in junior high school by Robert Bindley, a physical education teacher at Niguel Hills Junior High School.

“He asked me to try the shotput and I said, ‘Sure, I’ll try it.’ He got me into throwing.”

Once Blutreich began high school, he tried the discus but initially was more successful in the shotput, winning the State meet title as a junior in 1985. His senior year, he won the shotput title again, setting a state record at 68-4, and also won the discus.

It was during his freshman year at UCLA that his shotput career nearly ended. In a meet at Cal State Long Beach, Blutreich tore ligaments in his throwing hand.

“It was a redshirt year and I had my best (shotput) throw during that year, and I never improved after that. I had too many problems,” Blutreich said. “It became more mental after that than anything else once I started healing up.

“I hurt it so bad and so many times that it was ridiculous. It was just a very low point in my career.”

Parts of his college career were so difficult, Blutreich considered quitting when he was a sophomore.

After performing poorly in a dual meet at California in 1988, Blutreich did some soul searching. The morning after the meet, he went to the beach and pondered his career.

“I almost quit,” he said. “I reached the extreme low point--you could say I reached Death Valley--you couldn’t go any lower.

“I was just really frustrated and it wasn’t fun anymore. If you don’t have fun, there’s really no point in doing it.”

At the beach, sitting there most of the day, Blutreich decided to continue.

“I decided to give it another chance and try to make small improvements, nothing really major.

“The shot never really worked out. It got better. I was an All-American and stuff (he placed third in the NCAA meet as a junior), but I didn’t throw as well as I would have liked or I knew I was capable of doing.”

But Blutreich’s discus throwing improved, and he won the event at the Pacific-10 championships in 1989 and ’90. After graduating from UCLA with a degree in psychology, he was fifth at the TAC championships in 1990 and ’91. He finished the year with a personal best of 201-10.

Then came this year. It did not begin impressively.

“It’s been a real strange year,” Blutreich said. “I had a lot of success last year in terms of making my first (senior) national team and I was really happy with what I did. But this year, the motivation was not there.

“I’d try to get myself pumped up, but I really didn’t care how I did, but I did all the work.”

He began the season throwing 195 feet and by midseason, Blutreich found the motivation coming back.

“Right after the Mt. SAC relays, I started getting everything back together,” he said. After Mt. SAC in April, Blutreich competed at a meet in Houston, throwing only 193 feet, but he fouled on a throw that traveled more than 200 feet.

“I knew then it was in me to see the discus go over 200 feet,” he said. “I said, ‘Oh, yeah. I’m coming on now.’ Even though in the paper it only said 193 or 194, whatever it was.”

A week before the trials, Blutreich did go over 200 feet, throwing 205-6 in an all-comers meet at UC San Diego. At the trials, under hot and sticky conditions, Blutreich didn’t throw far enough to make the team.

But thanks to his reversal of fortune, Blutreich hopes to be part of the five-ringed circus known as the Olympics instead of watching it all on television from home.

“When you grow up, you’re watching the torch come in, watching the flag come in, just the whole thing,” Blutreich said. “You know you’re competing in the greatest sporting event ever.”