So, double Olympic champion Shirley Robertson will not be going to Beijing next year after all – not as a competitor at any rate. For all that the Scot might complain about being overlooked, the Yngling crew of Sarah Ayton, Sarah Webb and Pippa Wilson have done everything that has been asked of them and proved conclusively they are the best in the world.

Robertson won gold in the Europe class in Sydney and helmed her Yngling to another gold in Athens with Ayton and Webb. The image of the three blondes in a boat brought glamour to a staid and sometimes impenetrable old sport, but the harmony did not last long.

When Robertson decided to take time away from sailing to start a family, the two Sarahs formed their own crew, initially with Annie Lush, then Victoria Rawlinson and now with the former junior world champion, Wilson. Robertson was less than amused to learn that two teammates would be her direct rivals for the one Olympic spot in the Yngling class in Beijing, and the rivalry has intensified through the past year, not least because Lush was dropped from Ayton’s crew and joined Robertson. At the world championships in Portugal, Ayton and Robertson were separated by one point heading into the final race. Ayton won that battle and then took gold in the preOlympic regatta in Qingdao.

Robertson believed she would be quicker by next summer and that winning two Olympic golds entitled her to special treatment. She wanted selection to be delayed until at least the spring. “We’ve done all we can do, that’s all there is to it,” says Webb. “Shirley will be quicker by next summer, so will we. But neither of us will be able to focus on Beijing. Our programme for Qingdao needs to start now.”

Ayton adds: “Shirley says she needs some slack from the selectors but we haven’t been off the podium all year. We’ve won the worlds and the preOlympics and we’re not going to sit around now, thinking our job’s done. We want to win our second gold, a first for Pippa, and to dominate the other teams. It’s not just about us and Shirley, it’s about the rest of the world. We need to be selected so that we can get on with our programme. But if they honestly believe that continuing the trials would make us more likely to win gold, then we’ll have to go down that road.” Casting aside a double Olympic medallist was not done lightly, but the weight of recent results lay on the side of the feisty Ayton and her crew. It was not just the timing of Robertson’s absence from the sport that pushed Ayton into a new phase of her career. Robertson’s autocratic style of leadership and her tendency to regard the two Sarahs as mere crew, not as teammates, has influenced every facet of Ayton’s campaign.

According to Webb, the three blondes were actually one blonde and two others, but Ayton and Webb have taken the lessons learnt from Robertson into the coordination and funding of their own boat. At the low point of their campaign, Ayton hoisted her boat on a crane during Cowes Week with a notice reading “Sponsor us”. Backing has come from Mira-baud, a Swiss-based securities group, Skandia and the national lottery. But the three blondes might as well be sponsored by the Trappists. Nobody enters their tight little world, no word spills out. They have even signed their own team charter, an outline of their values and goals that includes a vow of silence. And when the changing conditions between Cascais and Qingdao demanded a reduction in crew weight, each of them lost 5kg in three weeks, proof of their solidarity.

“I can look into Sarah’s eyes and Pippa’s eyes and know they’ve done everything to help our campaign,” says Webb. “I can’t feel the same about anyone else. We watch other crews setting up their boats and you can tell they’re not a team. We try to stick close together all the time, to give off the air round the boat-park of, ‘We’re the three blondes, don’t mess with us’.

“It’s just the three of us and our coach because the more people that are involved, the more chances there are that secrets might leak out.”

Robertson has described her relationship with Ayton as like that of a former lover. “Nothing really bad happened, you just kind of drifted apart,” she says. Ayton smiles at the analogy and neatly deflects the challenge. “A lot of water has flowed under the bridge,” she says. “I hope we’ve gone beyond all that. Shirley’s got a helluva lot of experience and that shouldn’t be wasted. I hope she’ll want us to win gold and I hope that I would want the same if it was the other way around.

“The other day we were training with the whole squad. You look around the room and you’re surrounded by champions. Go out on the water and it’s the same. In Qingdao, Steve [Morrison] and Ben [Rhodes] had their races first. They didn’t go to plan but they won the gold. That inspires you.”

Ayton’s point is that they have proved themselves a solid crew and justified their selection. “If there’s a light-wind regatta tomorrow, we’d win,” she says. “If there’s a heavy-wind regatta tomorrow, we’d win that, too.”

Angered by the decision, Robertson has demanded that the Yngling girls win the gold, for her sake. For once, Ayton would be more than happy to oblige.

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