GOLDEN SCOT SAVOURS SUCCESS
The potential trouble with being single-minded is listening too much to your own thoughts. In claiming gold at the Sydney Olympics, Shirley Robertson succeeded where she felt she had failed herself four years earlier. Ahead of the Atlanta Games, she was so preoccupied with what she called her need to win that an obsession with victory became self-defeating.
Back in 1996, in the heat of competition, she slipped to fourth and out of the medals in the final race. The difference now, in her own word, is that she is "chilled". Technically excellent, her only potential weakness in the Europe class before Sydney was deemed to be her temperament. Now those voices have been silenced. So too, at last, have any lingering doubts inside her own head.
In Sydney she led proceedings from the start, but was pushed to the end in a rigorous examination of her mental toughness. In the first race of the final day she was placed a lowly 16th, allowing Margriet Matthysse of Holland to cut her lead to five points with one race to sail. Silver was secure but the real test of her mettle was making it gold. Matthysse duly won again, but needing to be at least fourth, Robertson managed a fighting third. Her will to win had never diminished. It was just a
question of being in control of it.
Robertson, brought up in Menstrie, near Stirling, first set sail at Loch Ard in the Trossachs as a child with the encouragement of her father, Ian. Remembering her first-ever regatta at Linlithgow in her teens, she recalls spending half the race being turned upside down. The sport was about to do the same to her life. George Thomson, the Scottish national coach, guided her through the system, advising her to focus on single-handed sailing.
In 1988, the International Olympic Committee introduced two women's classes for the Barcelona Games of 1992, allowing Robertson to switch from racing the Laser class to the Europe. She thought beforehand that she had a chance of a medal in Spain and it stunned her how wrong she was. Ninth place was creditable, given her relative inexperience, but she gave herself none. Her rivals' professionalism embarrassed her and was the main lesson absorbed - perhaps to the point of
weighing her down.
Speaking two years after the Olympics, Rod Carr, in his role as the Royal Yachting Association's chief coach, commented: "Don't get on the wrong side of Shirley, because she's a tough cookie." Overhearing, Robertson concurred: "If someone is trying it on on the race course then I give them a look. I want people to know not to mess with me." She was no longer prepared to be overawed by her rivals. They would never make her feel amateur again.
What she perhaps underestimated was the price of success. A year later, Robertson revealed for the first time the extent of her money worries, albeit claiming they did not concern her. "If I'm in debt, then I'm in debt," she disclosed in 1995 when taking account of her financial position. In truth, she was barely staying afloat. "I don't care how much anything costs. I always live at my credit limit. I go from overdraft limit to overdraft limit with a
wallet full of credit cards. When you're trying to be the best in the world, debt is irrelevant."
In the final months preceding Atlanta, Robertson agreed to take part in a series of video diaries for the BBC. It was partly to raise her profile, but also to lower the preconception that her life was in any way glamorous. She admitted she was a "nipper" in Barcelona. Having cut her teeth among the world's best, she was ready to bite back. What happened next, an unrewarded fourth position, was therefore tough to swallow.
Publicly, there was not a word about quitting, but privately she is understood to have voiced concerns about what to do next.
That four years on she went to Sydney confident she had hit her peak at the right time was due to several factors. The first, and unquestionably most significant, was the impact of National Lottery funding from 1998 onwards. "Before, Shirley was spending huge amounts of time just to secure a few hundred pounds in sponsorship," says Kenny Robertson, Scotland's national single-handed squad coach. "It's difficult to do your job without a regular income, but
the lottery has removed these worries."
Secondly, Robertson has become a more complete sailor under Mark Littlejohn, her new coach. He was reluctant to take the job, preferring to get on the water himself, but was persuaded by her determination.
"Sailing to Shirley now is as natural as typing," adds her namesake Robertson. "She has honed her boat-handling skills over two decades to the point where it is now instinctive. I think she has looked very collected at these Games. She no longer has to think about what she is doing."
Given that her father built her first dinghy in the family garage, Robertson, a former head girl at Alva Academy before obtaining a degree in recreation and management from Heriot-Watt University, is an example to every Scottish sailor. Yet, following her lead could well prove beyond the means of too many, according to Oli Ludlow, chairman of the RYA in Scotland.
The start-up costs are lower than imagined and Scotland is not short of water. Those with competitive aspirations, however, have no option but to head south: the same well-worn route that Robertson took to drive her own career forward. The north-south divide, though, is more than geographic. There is a substantial gulf in the money available to the respective countries which Ludlow is anxious to bridge.
"At Olympic level, which includes Shirley, the lottery funding is UK-wide, but at all the other levels it's split between the countries. The problem is that it's all the other levels which need money to produce sailors at Olympic level. Scotland has less than 10% of the funding available while England has 80% because of its higher population. Our fear is that Scotland will be left behind," cautions Ludlow.
In Sydney, Britain has excelled as a whole with three golds, but prior to these Games the last individual first place was by another, often unheralded, Scot. Michael McIntyre claimed victory in the Star class in Seoul in 1988. "We have been able to hold our own in the past in international competitions," continues Ludlow, "but to maintain that we need the issue of proper investment in full-time paid coaching and management to be addressed." Ludlow's contention
is that England have six high-performance managers while Scotland are being denied even one.
What Robertson has done cannot be understated: she is the first female Scot to win Olympic gold in an individual event. "Let me know what I need to do to stop the tears on the podium," she joked in the immediate aftermath of her success. It would be a crying shame if the same opportunities were denied any of her compatriots. As yet, she refuses to be drawn on whether she will return in 2004 to defend her title. "Just let me enjoy the moment," was her response. She
had waited too long to let it pass her by.
When she received her medal she stared into the night sky as if wanting to be frozen in time. After all, had her critics not said she would freeze? Those who know Robertson well often highlight her vivaciousness. She can be introspective in the intensity of competition, but in company she is a bubbly character. Sailing is her favoured drug, but champagne is sure to have been her fix in victory.
"I've always felt comfortable in a boat," Robertson says, "It's a nice place to be." She is aware it can be a lonely, miserable, expensive place too, but there should be no argument now. "If I ever realise my potential, it'll be like Christmas and my birthday rolled into one," she once sighed. For seizing gold, she is receiving her compliments of the season. Scotland is bound to offer her many happy returns to her native land.
SIMON BUCKLAND
Sunday Times
