Jake Wetzel
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 finshed 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.
*
Row Canada Bio*
Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race Link*
Bio on the Boat Race page*
Outside Magazine Article
