Peter Taylor

Rio 2016 was Pete's third Olympic Games. Peter competed in the lightweight double with Storm Uru at two previous games: Beijing where the duo finished seventh and London where they won a bronze medal.
In 2015 Peter Taylor was part of the lightweight men's double that failed to qualify for the Olympic Games finishing 13th overall. Prior to this Peter was part of the New Zealand lightweight four that were world silver medallists in consecutive years, 2013 and 2014.
Peter was born in Wellington and began his rowing career as a coxswain at Wellington College in 1997 before becoming an oarsman in 1999.
Outside of rowing Peter enjoys spending time with his wife Lauren and their brown Labrador Rudy.

Peter Taylor was born in Lower Hutt in 1984. He attended Wellesley College and then Wellington College. He began rowing while in the third form at Wellington College, encouraged into the sport by a friend. Never particularly big, he was a cox at first, but by the time he was 15 he was rowing. 
Taylor was part of the winning Wellington College Maadi Cup Springbok Shield four, and rowed for the Star Boating Club in Wellington, and for Victoria University (two Blues) before heading to Auckland to finish his degree and further his rowing career. 
After gaining a B Comm, he worked as a business consultant for Deloitte in Auckland, while rowing for the Auckland Rowing Club. Then he became part of the national rowing squad and moved his base to the Waikato.

In 2006, Taylor and Waikato rower Graham Oberlin-Brown won the world under-23 lightweight double sculls crown at Hazewinkel, Belgium, setting a world under-23 best time in the process. 
But there were other good lightweight rowers about and four world champions, either in the under-23 or elite grade, went though six months of rigorous testing before the lightweight doubles sculls crew to compete at the 2008 Beijing Olympics was decided. 
In the end Taylor and Southlander Storm Uru, also a former under-23 lightweight world champion, won the selectors' nod. They were inexperienced, but could generate real boat speed. 
Taylor and Uru had been together only a year when they went to Beijing, and their inexperience showed. They made the final and finished seventh, but were disappointed. They had the ability, as they showed later, but lacked experience.

Over the next four years, they became one of the leading crews in international rowing, winning the world title in Poznan, Poland, in 2009, finishing third at Lake Karapiro in 2010 and second in Bled, Slovenia, in 2011. 
At the 2012 London Olympics, they were second in their heat, behind Britain, and second behind Danes Mads Rasmussen and Rasmus Quist Hansen in their semi-final. The Danes were too slick in the final, Britain were second and Taylor and Uru held off the French pair comfortably enough for the bronze. 
After 2012, with Uru concentrating on business and then study in England, Taylor joined a crack New Zealand lightweight coxless four, along with James Hunter, James Lassche and Curtis Rapley. They won World Cup races in Sydney, Eton and Lucerne and claimed the silver at the 2013 world champs at Chungju, South Korea. They were well beaten by Denmark, but no other team pushed the New Zealanders close. 
Taylor is a world-class single sculler, as well as a top crew performer, and at the 2012 national championships unofficially recorded the best time ever for a lightweight single sculler over 2000 metres.