The Yorkshire accent offered nothing of the John Wayne drawl, but the message was the same for the guy he had just run out of town and the Olympic regatta: “A man's got to do what a man's got to do.”

Paul Goodison makes an unlikely gunslinger, but he was the meanest hombre in the Laser class fleet yesterday when he guaranteed his gold medal - Great Britain's third sailing gold and fourth medal overall on the waters of Fushan Bay. Along the way, he shot to pieces the Olympic dreams of Rasmus Myrgren, of Sweden, the only man who could challenge him.

Goodison identified Myrgren as his biggest threat and trained his sights on the Swede, steering his one-man dinghy to “take him out”, in the parlance of the best gunfighters. It was uncompromising and uncomfortable stuff as the Swede floundered, unable to find any weapons to strike back, especially when the wind died mid-race and an eerie stillness descended on the bay. If they were not at sea, you could have imagined tumbleweed blowing past.

Myrgren started in silver-medal position in the medal race, in which points count double, and to secure the gold he needed to win while relegating the Briton to ninth of ten. But Goodison adopted a match-race mentality and drove him to last place, while finishing ninth himself, and off the podium. The heartbroken Swede was replaced in second place by Vasilij Zbogar, of Slovenia, who grabbed Goodison as they arrived at the quayside and dunked him in the water.

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“I have to thank Paul for this result,” he said. “The Swede was the only one who could spoil my race and Goodison made the right decision to watch him and keep him behind him. Then it was easier for me. I like Goodison very much and I am very happy for him to get the gold medal.”

Myrgren, who, by accruing 20 points in a worst-case scenario, finished a lowly sixth, trudged off to meet an enraged Swedish media. He passed Goodison on his way out, but their exchange was terse. “I apologised, but I think he was a bit stressed and upset,” Goodison said. “He was screaming at the officials all through the second half of the race to abandon it when the wind died. I went after him because he was the only one who could beat me to the gold. I feel sorry for him but there can only be one winner. It is just sport and you have to do what you have to do.”

Ruthless is not an adjective often applied to British sportsmen, but Goodison learnt alongside the master and has been taking advice from Team GB's dominant cycling team. He and Chris Hoy have been exchanging messages all week and the sailor is a keen cyclist.

“Chris sent me a message that said we would have to compare medals at the end of the week - so thank God I have come through and kept my half of the bargain,” Goodison said.

There was an example closer to home, though. Goodison, 29, born in Rotherham, was Ben Ainslie's training partner in Sydney in 2000 when Ainslie infamously drove Robert Scheidt, of Brazil, out of contention for gold in their last race. His aggression was denounced and Ainslie received death threats from Brazil.

But he won gold in those Olympics and has won two more since, including this week in Qingdao, where he employed similarly tough tactics.

Myrgren grudgingly accepted that there was little he could do and he would probably have done the same. There was never any question in Goodison's mind once he looked across Fushan Bay and saw the curiously capricious conditions that have blighted this regatta. “If the wind had been a little bit stronger, it would just have been a case of going out and sailng the race and just finishing it off,” he said. “But with the conditions as they were, you could go from 100 metres behind to 100 metres in front on one puff of wind. Anybody who has watched previous Olympics will have seen what Ben did in Sydney and what Ben did two days ago, and I am sure they understand.”

Understand, as Wayne, the greatest cowboy of them all, would have put it, why “a man has to do what a man has to do”.

Every man's dinghy

- The Laser is the most popular class of dinghy in the world, with about 190,000 sold

- It costs about £4,500, to put it within reach of the cheapest budgets

- It weighs only 130lb, much less than the average man, so youngsters can manhandle it and it can be towed by a family car

- At 13ft 10in long and 4ft 7in in the beam, the Laser is one of the smaller Olympic craft and is comparatively easy to rig and sail, making it an ideal craft for beginners

- Ben Ainslie won his first gold for Great Britain in a Laser, a feat now repeated by Goodison