Dirty tricks could scupper Kendall's IOC bid

Legendary boardsailor Barbara Kendall has decided to quit the sport and "go knitting" after her Olympic medal campaign withered in the light airs of Qingdao.

But she hopes to be back at the games as part of the International Olympic Committee's athletes' commission although her place could be under threat from some intensive lobbying and dirty tricks.

For the past two years, Kendall has been a member of the commission, which gives athletes a voice at the IOC. Voting for the incoming four members takes place tomorrow, and 31 Olympic athletes are standing.

Kendall is up against the likes of Australian swimmer Grant Hackett, ill-fated Chinese hurdler Xiang Liu, and tennis players, Belgian Justine Henin and Amelie Mauresmo of France.

Athletes are required to select representatives from four different sports, in order to ensure broad representation. Voting offices are set up in each of the Olympic Villages in Beijing, Qingdao and Hong Kong, as well as in the four cities hosting soccer competitions.

After acceptance by the IOC Session, the four elected athletes will become IOC members for eight years.

Kendall said she would like to carry on doing the work she had started.

"It would be great. I really wanted to stand again for the IOC because I really enjoy that work and I feel I can make a difference, because I've had a quite a lot of experience after five Olympics," she said.

"I knew about a year ago that I'd put myself up for election again.

"The chances of getting elected are pretty small because you've got huge numbers from European countries and New Zealand's so small.

"We're quite a small sport and sailors really aren't that interested in that sort of stuff. But it's very big in Europe and Asia. The chances of getting voted on are actually quite slim."

At least two instances of pre-election indescretions have been uncovered at the Games, one by the powerful United States Olympic Committee, which on Monday apologised for offering $50 vouchers to US Olympians in an attempt to get them to vote.

US football player Julie Foudy is one of the athletes standing. The US told a meeting of chefs de mission they had not encouraged athletes to vote for Foudy, just to vote.

The second IOC warning went to an athlete who was distributing leaflets where she shouldn't have been.

More than 10,000 athletes from 204 countries are eligible to vote, so nations with the largest number of athletes to have an advantage in the process. The US has a team of 596, and China 639. New Zealand have 182.

Athletes standing must have competed at Athens in 2004, or in Beijing.

New Zealand chef de mission Dave Currie said he was not involved in the process, as only Kendall was allowed to lobby athletes.

"We can tell athletes it is an important mechanism and they should vote, but not who they should vote for. We don't have an IOC member, so it is important to have someone at that level."

Former IOC member Tay Wilson retired, though he remained an honorary member, so Kendall is the New Zealander with the most power on the IOC.

Kendall became an IOC member when she replaced Australian swimmer Susie O'Neill as an athletes' representative. She has full IOC voting rights.

Kendall meanwhile, at her fifth Olympics, which have netted one medal of each colour, has had enough, although she kept the door ajar by saying she would retire "for at least a year".

"I don't know what I'm going to do,'' the 40-year-old mother of two said.

"I'll have a at least a year off and go knitting," she said. Asked if she'd entertain a comeback for London in 2012, Kendall laughed.

"If there was some wind there I'd think about it but I would never race in Qingdao again.

"The wind is so ridiculously light it's just not sailing here, it's a pumping contest," she said referring to the boardsailing technique of pumping the sail to inch the board forward.

Kendall summed up her regatta when a Chinese broadcaster offered her congratulations as she came off the water.

"What for? I was shit."

She came 21st in her last race and while she go into today's medal race in seventh place she has no chance of a medal and blamed a lingering chest infection for her poor showing.

-Fairfax Media/NZPA