By Jeff Hoyt

For The Beachcomber

They were six minutes from Switzerland. Six minutes to leave it all out on the water and then fly to Lucerne later this month to take the final step toward rowing for Team USA at the Olympics in Tokyo this summer.

Sitting in the three-seat of the Craftsbury men’s quad was 24-year-old Jacob Plihal from Vashon Island. He came into this pivotal mid-April race having spent a third of his life navigating a barrage of regional, national and international competition, starting out as a junior for Vashon Island Rowing Club and then continuing through his collegiate rowing career at Northeastern University in Boston and beyond.

“I have always been captivated by the Olympics and high levels of sport,” recalled Plihal. “I remember watching the Beijing Olympics when I was 12, and having dreams of being able to compete at that level someday.”

Jacob sat at the starting line on Mercer Lake in New Jersey with his three other elite American teammates, waiting for the race official to drop the flag. Two-thousand heart-pounding, lung-searing meters later, the first boat to the finish line would advance to Lucerne.

“Persistence pays dividends in this sport,” said Plihal. “Of the rowers in the winning boats, all have veteran athletes who have been consistently in the upper echelon of domestic men’s sculling for one, if not two Olympic cycles.”

In the end, Jacob’s boat fell to a crew from Penn AC that rowed as if their lives depended on it. After an earlier near-miss in the men’s double, Plihal’s attempt to make the 2021 US Olympic team was over.

“Penn AC attacked it from the start and were relentless,” said Richard Parr, Plihal’s junior coach from his VIRC days. “That’s what you need to do in international racing.”

Parr, currently coaching on-island at Burton Beach Rowing Club, said that Jacob is built for competition at this level.

“He’s an architect by training,” said Parr, “and that kind of structured mind works well in rowing, very technical and precise.”

While the actual 2,000-meter final was a sprint, the journey to get to within six minutes of Switzerland was a dizzying marathon.

As a junior rower at VIRC, Plihal was either practicing or racing pretty much every day. He medaled at Youth Nationals and won gold in the single against 28 other rowers at the prestigious Brentwood Regatta. Then he somehow managed to get a degree in architecture at Northeastern amidst a college life that included daily morning workouts plus evening weightlifting or rowing machine work, wedged in among classes, three hours of nightly homework, and racing on many weekends.

Baxter Call rowed with Jacob at VIRC for two years, earning a bronze medal with him at Youth Nationals their senior year. After his own successful rowing career as a captain at Oregon State, Baxter joined Jacob in a men’s quad at the under-23 World Rowing Championships in Poland.

“Rowing with Jacob gives you confidence that you can be in contention with just about anybody you will go up against,” said Call. “When he decides it’s time to go, the rest of the boat can really feel it.”

Forrest Miller came into the sport with Plihal at the same time and they rowed together as novices at Vashon Island Rowing Club.

“His potential was apparent from the beginning,” said Miller, describing Plihal’s stroke this way: “There is no bravado to it. It is a stealthily powerful stroke that I would liken to a riptide.”

When Jacob is back home on Vashon for the holidays or off-season visits, he still trains with Coach Parr at Burton Beach and continues to quietly lead by example, inspiring the younger rowers.

“Jacob is fast because he is dedicated and he is calm, cool and collected,” said BBRC’s Kate Kelly, now a first-year rower at the University of Virginia. Kelly said that training on Quartermaster Harbor with Jacob has helped her push for her own goals.

“Rowing with Jacob makes me have only more love for my sport,” said Kelly. “He encourages me to get up every day as a Division One rower and go see what I can do to one day also be training for the Olympics.”

The average age of an Olympic-caliber gymnast is 18 to 19 years old. For swimmers, it’s 22 (unless you’re a freak of nature like Michael Phelps). Beach volleyball players peak at 29 or 30. For rowers, the sweet spot for Olympic competition is 27 to 28 years of age.

Plihal will have just turned 28 when the next Olympic Games convene in Paris. With his VIRC and college days behind him and an architectural career out in front of him, does Jacob still have the fire burning inside for another go at the Olympics?

“I plan to continue my rowing career for another Olympic quadrennial,” said Jacob, “and if I find success in the coming years, I may continue pursuing national and Olympic teams even after that if I have the right balance of life, work and sport.”

Coach Parr fell back on “relentlessness” as the key to Jacob’s continued success: “Olympic rowers don’t miss training, they don’t take light strokes, ever, and every single piece is done to the best of their ability. I think that technically and physiologically, Jacob is certainly elite level now. It depends on how long he wants to pursue it. He has the physical tools.”

And no matter where his rowing adventures take him, Jacob’s thoughts are never far from home.

“I’d like to extend my sincerest gratitude to everyone on the island who has followed along in my pursuits and supported me through the years, especially those in the rowing community,” said Jacob. “The successes I have had in the sport are a direct result of the community that has been behind me every step of the way.”

Jeff Hoyt is a voice actor, creator of the “Hoytus Interruptus” podcast, and has rowed with Vashon Island Rowing Club for 20 years.