After the election of four athletes - and the appointment of one other - at Tokyo 2020, a further two Olympic competitors will join the Commission at Beijing 2022.

The fact the vote is taking place may have been lost in the tumultuous build-up to the Games in the Chinese capital, which has been dominated by valid criticism over the country’s human rights record, but it will nonetheless be an important moment for the Athletes’ Commission.

The IOC announced yesterday that a total of 17 athletes will stand for the two available places on the Commission, a record for a Winter Olympic Games.

Those who are successful in the vote will replace the outgoing Hayley Wickenheiser and Ole Einar Bjørndalen, who resigned from the Commission more than five-and-a-half years ago after deciding to prolong his stellar biathlon career.

Both Wickenheiser, the Canadian ice hockey star who won four Olympic gold medals, and eight-time Olympic champion Bjørndalen faced criticism from both inside and outside of the IOC over their lack of activity during their time on the organisation.

Athletes elected to the Commission, who automatically become IOC members, are bound by the Olympic Charter to participate in meetings and other activities linked to their position.

The Charter states: "Any IOC member shall cease to be a member without any further declaration on his part if, subject to force majeure, such member fails to attend Sessions or to take any active part in the work of the IOC for two consecutive years."

Wickenheiser, widely considered as one of the greatest ice hockey players of all time, had been a regular absentee from IOC Sessions and meetings even before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

It was rarely a surprise to hear the IOC’s director general Christophe de Kepper announce her name on the list of those not in attendance at a Session, for example.

The 47-year-old had seemingly been focusing on other areas of her life, principally her training as a doctor, which she has now completed.

Wickenheiser is part of a sparsely populated group of IOC members who have gone against the grain by openly questioning the decisions of the leadership, so was never likely to be granted an extension to her term beyond the expiry of her mandate at Beijing 2022.

Last year, the Canadian made global headlines by calling the IOC "irresponsible" for insisting the Tokyo 2020 Olympics would go ahead as planned. The Games in the Japanese capital were postponed a few weeks later.

Wickenheiser said she had been privately censored by the IOC for the comments on Twitter, despite coming from a position of considerable knowledge as they had been prompted by her experiences working as a junior doctor in medical emergency rooms in Toronto hospitals, where the number of severely ill COVID-19 patients had been rising steadily.

Bjørndalen was also conspicuous by his absence during his short time on the IOC. He missed the Extraordinary IOC Session in Monte Carlo in December 2014, the candidate city briefing on the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic race in Lausanne in June 2015 and the following month's IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur, where Beijing beat Almaty by four votes to land the hosting rights for the Games.

He also declined to attend the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games in his home country, prompting additional criticism from some of his IOC colleagues.

The IOC said back in 2016 a replacement for Bjørndalen would be elected "in due course". It turns out "due course" is six years.

The organisation will be hoping for greater contributions from the two elected at Beijing 2022.

In some ways, the election itself follows the pattern of practically every single vote in every single sector: it is a popularity contest.

Spanish basketball player Pau Gasol was arguably the biggest name who stood in the vote at Tokyo 2020. Unsurprisingly, he topped the poll by quite a distance.

Gasol, who recently announced his retirement from professional basketball, missed the first IOC Athletes’ Commission meeting after his election to the body. A spokesperson for his team told insidethegames he was "fully committed to his new role".

"Pau was not able to attend that meeting due to scheduling reasons, but he is in permanent contact with the IOC Athletes Commission members," the spokesperson said - more than six weeks after the initial request for comment.

The most recognisable name on the list for the Beijing 2022 election is French biathlon star Martin Fourcade.

The five-time Olympic champion was put forward as the French candidate in 2019 after seeing off high jump legend Renaud Lavillenie in a run off for their National Olympic Committee’s nomination.

Fourcade is an early favourite as the IOC will be keen for a French athlete to join the body, given the nation is set to host the next edition of the Summer Olympics. France lost its representative on the Athletes’ Commission when Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet’s term concluded after Tokyo 2020 this year.

The 33-year-old, who has had the ear of IOC President Thomas Bach at events the two have attended in recent years, could also be an outside bet to chair the Commission at some point in the future.