Juggling is second nature to windsurfer Kendall

By Greg Stutchbury

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Juggling the different demands of life has become second nature to New Zealand windsurfer Barbara Kendall as she prepares for her fifth Olympics.

A hard training schedule, international travel and the needs of her two young children have all been programmed into the three-times world champion's run-up to next month's Beijing Games.

"It took me two months to work out what exactly I wanted to do for these last two months," Kendall, 40, told Reuters by telephone from Auckland.

"Just juggling all the ideas and talking to the other girls to see who was going to be in China to train with and just working out all the little details.

"I had to make sure all the little bits that worried me were taken care of and that I'd be happy with it and then I'll be fine (on the water).

"There are a lot of logistics involved. You want to get it just right as well, because if you blow it, that's it."

Kendall, Olympic champion in 1992, had just completed a 60-minute run around the hills of Auckland and was organizing visas for herself and her husband Shayne ahead of a regatta at Qingdao, the venue for the Olympic sailing programme.

She also had to arrange visas for her two children, Samantha and Aimee, who will join their parents for the last five days of the Games.

"It's a bit of a complicated itinerary actually as we juggle children and comings and goings. And our sanity," the former dance school manager added, laughing.

"It's like that a lot, just trying to work out what is best so you feel like you're being a mother, I couldn't just up and leave them. There is just no way I could do that.

"It's too hard emotionally and so it's just juggling what is the most amount of time you want to leave them."

BROTHER'S EXAMPLE

Now that she was on her final preparations, Kendall said she could concentrate on adding to her impressive Olympic record.

She won New Zealand's only gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Games, following the example of her brother Anthony who was Olympic windsurfing champion in 1988.

Barbara added a silver in Atlanta in 1996 and bronze at Sydney in 2000. She finished fifth in Athens.