Barbara Kendall

Barbara Kendall, 2008

Barbara Kendall , CNZM , MBE (born August 30, 1967 in Papakura ) is a New Zealand windsurfer . She is the only woman to date to have won three Olympic medals. In addition, she was five times world champion. Her older brother Bruce Kendall is also a successful windsurfer.

biography

Kendall started windsurfing at the age of 17. Her first big success was in 1987 when she won the world title. In 1988 she gave up her previous job as a dance teacher and devoted herself entirely to sport, because she wanted to emulate her brother, who had become Olympic champion that year. Women's windsurfing was a shadowy existence in New Zealand. That changed suddenly when she won the gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona (it was New Zealand's only Olympic win that year).

At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta , she carried the flag of New Zealand during the opening ceremony. In the Olympic regatta off Savannah she was defeated by Hong Kong Chinese Lee Lai Shan and came second. Four years later in Sydney she reached 3rd place. Three more world championship titles followed in 1998, 1999 and 2002. With two false starts at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, she awarded the Olympic victory and was only fifth. In 2002 she won the fifth world title; In 2003, 2004 and 2007 she won the silver medal at world championships. With the successful qualification for the 2008 Summer Olympics , she will be the first New Zealand woman to have participated in five Olympic Games.

From July 2005 to August 2008, the mother of two was the representative of the athletes of Oceania on the International Olympic Committee . She replaced the Australian swimmer Susie O'Neill , who had resigned (Kendall had received the second most votes in the election to the athletes' committee and was automatically moved up). However, she failed in her re-election in Beijing in 2008. At the 2008 Olympic sailing competitions in Qingdao , she came in sixth.