By Bryn Palmer, PA Sport, Sydney

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Four years ago, she was a tantalising two points from an Olympic medal, and the tears flowed.

On Friday, the smile on Shirley Robertson's face said it all after the Scot held her nerve to claim Britain's first ever individual sailing gold, and the first of any colour by a woman.

Her twin achievement ignited what will almost certainly be a record haul of medals by British sailors at a single Games, and completed a journey that took her from a tiny loch in central Scotland as a six-year-old to mastery of the world's most demanding waters in Sydney Harbour.

Robertson, 32, started the final day of competition in the single-handed Europe class a commanding nine points ahead of 1996 silver medallist Margriet Matthysse, but a 16th place in the penultimate race - her worst of the series - allowed the Dutchwoman to close the gap to four going into the 11th and final contest.

Although Matthysse again excelled to win her third consecutive race, this time Robertson kept her chief rival in her sights to take third in the testing conditions, and claim victory by a mere two points - 37 to Matthysse's 39 - after the pair's two worst results were discarded.

"It was very close and I had to be really careful," Robertson said. "The conditions were really difficult with the gusts coming in, and I didn't have a cushion. I just had to hold it together and protect myself out there."

Her instinct for self-preservation had grown sharply after her experience in Savannah four years ago, when the final tallies were calculated and the Dundee-born sailor endured the crushing disappointment of learning she had finished two points outside the medals.

Having progressed each year in the interim, however, and boasting a second place at this year's world championship in Salvador and a bronze medal at the pre-Olympics regatta in Sydney, Robertson finally shook off her bridesmaid's tag when it mattered most.

"Coming fourth in Atlanta was one of the worst times in my life," she recalled.

"I remember how I felt when I came back to Britain and it was a driving force for me.

"I was devastated at the time and I decided, if I did it again, I wasn't going to do it like that.

"It was not going to be the most important thing in my life, and I approached things differently on the water.

"I have not spent every minute sailing or thinking about sailing, and I am a lot more relaxed here. It has paid off and I am really chuffed."

Robertson's career began inadvertently as a six-year-old when her father took her out on his Mirror Miracle dinghy on Loch Ard in the Trossachs, near her parents' home in the Stirlingshire village of Menstrie.

"It is all my Dad's fault I haven't got a proper job yet," she joked. "I started sailing recreationally with him and once I got into it I was hooked. It is addictive, sailing, and he used to drive me up and down Scotland every weekend."

She later started competing at the highest level straight out of Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University and finished ninth at Barcelona in 1992.

After the disappointment of Atlanta however, Robertson, like Britain's successful rowers and cyclists, has benefited from Lottery funding and the opportunity to train full-time, free from financial worries.

"It gave us all confidence, the fact we were not scrimping and saving, and it made a huge difference to our confidence and our lifestyle," she explained.

"It was a terrible feeling to be part of the team that came back from Atlanta. Everyone was really slating us, and we hadn't done very well.

"But it is great that we have come back. We are supported in the UK now. As we have seen here in Australia, sport is important, and when it is well funded, you do well. We have started to see that in the UK."

While admitting she was disheartened at reports suggesting the British team may not enjoy the same levels of Lottery funding post-Sydney - "you don't have to be Einstein to work out we have done a lot better this time", - Robertson was content to put off thoughts of the future, and celebrate the golden present.

"I am just relieved it has finished really," she added. "It has been a really long week and we have had to be prepared to race for the past 10 days. I don't think it has really sunk in yet that I have won a gold medal."