Brewer runner not yet at Trials

A Brewer athlete has not yet appeared at the U.S. Olympic Trials in New Orleans despite a fund-raising effort to send him to the trials and his stated intention to compete in the 800-meter dash.

Phil LeBreton, a 1991 Brewer High School graduate, said Friday he would be attending the Olympic trials to compete in the 800.

However, the 800 quarterfinals were held on Saturday and the semifinals on Sunday. LeBreton’s father, Philip LeBreton, said his son left Brewer for the trials in a rented car on Sunday afternoon.

The money to pay for the car’s use was made possible through a fund-raising effort of a Bangor restaurant, which asked for contributions to send LeBreton to the trials.

Stanley Evans, an assistant of the media operations center at the trials, said LeBreton’s name was not listed in any of the heats to compete in the 800. Evans also said LeBreton’s name was not on the comprehensive list of all the athletes who are competing at the trials.

Evans added that LeBreton’s name was not listed for any of the other distance events.

The elder LeBreton said a mixup of dates and times provided by one of his son’s sponsors has caused his son to miss the chance to compete at the trials.

“He has every intention of going down there and running,” he said.

LeBreton said he was unsure how his son received the incorrect information.

“In all the excitement it (the time schedule) was overlooked. He was probably given the wrong information,” he said.

To compete in the Olympic trials, a participant must meet a minimum qualifying time.

The younger LeBreton said Friday he had run an 800 in a meet sponsored by The Athletics Congress in a time of 1 minute, 50.5 seconds. He said the trials’ qualifying time was 1:51. However, the qualifying time for the 800 is 1:47.65, according to Track and Field News magazine.

A practice for qualifying for the trials would be to receive an invitation to compete in races sponsored by TAC. A competitor would run in a series of races in an attempt to meet the qualifying time.

Several competitors, Evans said, believed they had met the minimum standards and had attempted to enter events. However, they were notified a week ago that they had not qualified, he added.

LeBreton’s best time in the 800 as a high school competitor was last year in a dual meet when he clocked a 2:01.7, according to his former track coach, Dave Jeffrey.

Jeffrey said LeBreton did not compete in his final high school meet, the Eastern Maine Regional.