While most Paralympians have their minds focused solely on winning medals, markswoman Kim Im-yeon from South Korea is also busy trying to woo voters in her campaign for election to the Athletes' Committee of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

"I work from morning till night, trying to meet as many people as possible," she told China Daily through an interpreter on Tuesday, after winning silver in the R8-50m sport rifle 3x20-SH1 event.

"Sometimes I don't even get time to eat," the 41-year-old said.

"It's very hard for me when I'm competing, but when I'm not, I talk to athletes in the village so they can get to know me and hopefully vote for me."

Having already bagged several Paralympic titles since her debut at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, Kim said her goal now is to win the election.

"I've won a lot of medals already and that's enough for me. In Beijing, my biggest wish is to be elected into the IPC Athletes' Committee.

"I tell other athletes that I'm their spokesperson and their voice, and that I will try my best to represent them at the committee. I'm confident I can win their votes."

After contracting polio at the age of 4, Kim was left almost paralyzed and spent years doing nothing but lying in bed, until her father taught her how to sit up and carried her on his back to school. She said she often felt suicidal.

"As a little girl, I couldn't bear all the discrimination from my peers.

"I would lock myself in my room and refuse to eat. I thought about dying all the time, and once even climbed to the top of the building and planned to jump.

"But as I put out one of my legs, I suddenly realized that I couldn't die like this and that I had to live on," she said.

"But every life has its own value and I knew I had to face it bravely and make something of my life."

At the age of 12, she got the chance to visit a local shooting range and was immediately hooked.

"I thought shooting seemed such a cool sport, I really loved the noise," she said.

After her success in Atlanta - she won two golds and a bronze - Kim was invited to join the KB National Bank shooting team.

She is now South Korea's only disabled professional sportswoman.

At the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, Kim met the man who would become her husband - a South Korean weightlifting coach - and last year, she gave birth to their son.

The big change for Kim came at the 2006 Asian Games, when she said she began thinking less about sport and more about what she could do to help her fellow disabled athletes.

"As head of the athletes' committee at that time, I saw many Asian athletes with disabilities working under very difficult conditions, so I thought we should unite to fight for our rights and promote Asian sports to the world," she said.

"Now, I want to learn from our European counterparts and hope Europe and Asia can work together to make the Paralympics a better place, where every athlete can have fun and promote the interests and rights of disabled people."

(China Daily 09/11/2008 page6)