LUCERNE, Switzerland – John Taylor, son of Newtown residents John and Fran Taylor, was selected by U.S. Olympic coach Mike Teti to represent the United States in the World Rowing Championships in Lucerne, Switzerland.

The announcement was made by U.S. Rowing, the governing body for rowing in the United States, and could be seen at www.rowing2k.com which lists the National team’s roster.

John was a 1998 graduate of Hong Kong International School in Hong Kong. He entered the University of Wisconsin at Madison and will be a senior education major for the 2001-02 year. He was the heavyweight eight varsity coxswain for Wisconsin last year and looks to be so this year.

Wisconsin has won the Ten Eyck Trophy at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association’s (IRA) annual collegiate regatta for the last three years. The trophy is given to the school scoring the most points over the eight heavyweight men’s college rowing events of the regatta. In June of 1999, John was the coxswain for the winning Open 4 plus coxswain event in the IRA’s, an entry requiring that at least one of the rowers must be a freshman and another rower must be an upperclassman.

Prior to John’s being selected to cox the Heavyweight Men’s four plus coxswain entry, he had spent the last two-and-a-half months at the Princeton Training Center in New Jersey where the U.S. Olympic Team practices every four years and where most of the national team practices during off Olympic years, such as this one.

John was born April 18, 1980 in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. His parents have owned a home in Newtown since 1987 (a weekend home while they were living outside Manhattan in Brooklyn Heights, New York) and have been Newtown residents since 1999, since retiring from Hong Kong.