In 1998, when Jacob Plihal was 2 years old and 14 years away from pulling his first stroke in a rowing shell, the U.S. finished fourth in the quadruple sculls event at the World Rowing Championships.
That was the best finish in that event until the last week in September — when the U.S. boat,with Plihal in the number two seat (bow is number one seat), again captured fourth place.
Until 2022, the U.S. rowing program emphasized mostly sweep events, with sculling entries in world championships determined by a trial race between interested programs. Now sculling teams are selected in the same way as the sweep entries, with top rowers invited to a selection camp, and from that group the roster is determined.
However, the U.S. team (Nathan Phelps, Cedar Cunningham and Chris Carlson joined Plihal to make up the quad) started rowing together in June. The stroke seat in the winning Italian boat was in that same spot in 2018, when the U.S. quad faced them in Poznan, Poland, for the under-23 World Championships that year.
The difference between pulling thousands of strokes together in a shell — and hundreds of thousands of those strokes — shows up in the final results. A fourth-place finish this year, although modestly disappointing for the U.S. crew, represented a huge improvement in the competitiveness of U.S. sculling.
The races were held on Dianshan Lake, about 10 miles from downtown Shanghai, China. This venue was created for the World Rowing Championships in 2021, only to have that event canceled with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elite rowers consume a lot of calories, and in an international event such as the World Championships, these athletes are monitored closely for performance-enhancing drugs. Thus, the dining venues were severely restricted, and the mantra was “no street meat.”
The rowers dutifully resisted the temptation to dine on such sidewalk delicacies as sea horses on a stick, crickets, and pickled chicken’s feet — which brings to mind the banquet scene from “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” where upon being presented a platter of stuffed scarab beetles, Kate Capshaw’s character remarks, “Oh, no thanks. I had bugs for breakfast.”
Participants in the main rowing events at the championships had a chance to row another event: the mixed double. When Plihal and boat partner Katy Flynn rowed to the start line for their heatrace in this event, they had rowed together twice in that boat.
The heat didn’t go well, and they finished last (by over 20 seconds), placing them in the B final. However, in that final they “got their act together” and finished first (seventh overall). Imagine what they would have done if they had, say, rowed three or four more times together before the World Championships.
With winter approaching, the rowing season is winding down. The remaining events on the calendar are head races — where crews compete over longer distances and row from a staggered start rather than side by side.
The granddaddy of these events is the Head of the Charles, where over ten thousand rowers will convene in Boston Oct. 17 through 19 to compete, with the fall colors decorating the three-mile-long course. Plihal will be there to finish out an impressive year of rowing.
Pat Call is a contributing writer for The Beachcomber.
