Jake Wetzel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Olympic medal record | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Rowing | |||
| Silver | 2004 Athens | Men's Coxless Four | |
Jacob Wetzel (born December 26, 1976 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) is an American-Canadian rower. He has represented both countries at the World Championships and the Olympics.
As a teenager, Wetzel was on the Canadian Junior Cycling team; he only began rowing in the fall of 1997 at the University of California, Berkeley. His success was immediate and extraordinary. His collegiate boat was undefeated and won the freshman 8 event at the 1998 Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship (IRA). That summer Wetzel tried out for and made the Canadian National team in the pair event (2-) and finished seventh at the World Championships in Cologne, Germany. (It is virtually unheard of for a rower to make a national team in their first year rowing.)
In 1999, 2001, and 2002 he again competed for Berkeley where he was coached by Steve Gladstone, this time in the varsity 8. All three years his boats won the IRA and were de facto national champions. In 1999 and 2001, his boats were undefeated. In 2002, his boat suffered a single loss to the University of Washington, but beat Washington on several other occasions including the IRA.
Internationally, Wetzel competed for the United States in 1999, (Four with (4+) Gold medal at World Championships), in 2000 (Quad (4x), 7th place at the 2000 Summer Olympics). In 1999, Wetzel was one of the principal subjects in the Outside Magazine article "Blood in the Water" on the difficulties and internal competition involved in trying to make a national team boat.
After a two-year pause because of a shoulder injury caused by a mountaneering accident, in 2003 Wetzel returned to the international rowing scene and he rejoined Team Canada. Wetzel made the straight 4 (4-) and he won a gold medal at the 2003 world championships in Milan, Italy. And in the most anticipated and exciting races at the 2004 Summer Olympics, Wetzel's boat finished second by inches to Great Britain.
In 2005/2006 Wetzel did an MSc in Financial Economics at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School. He was a member of the victorious Oxford crew in the 2006 Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race.
