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Swimming star eyes IOC spot
Posted: Tuesday January 11, 2000 11:09 AM
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- Australian dual Olympic gold medalist Kieren Perkins says he's eyeing a spot on the International Olympic Commission's athletes commission when he quits competitive swimming. Perkins, who still holds the 1,500-meter freestyle world record of 14 minutes 41.66 seconds which he set in 1994, is expected to retire after the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Under IOC reforms announced in December in the wake of last year's corruption scandal, 15 of the 115 IOC members must be athletes. And Perkins said Tuesday if he had the chance to get involved he "definitely would." "A ballet is taken at each Olympics for the athletes commission," he said. "I'll put my name forward this time around. I thought about it in Atlanta [1996] but I didn't because I felt that I was going to keep competing. "I didn't think it was the sort of thing that could be combined easily. Now that I know I'm retiring it's something I'd definitely be interested in." Before the reforms, members of the athletes commission advised the IOC but had no voting rights. Under the changes, athletes commission representatives will be chosen to become part of the IOC membership with full voting rights.
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