They had spent their childhoods together playing with Lego bricks when they could not take to the water, but little did Andrew Simpson and Iain Percy know then that they were building a friendship that would result in an Olympic gold medal.

The long-time friends had sailed against each other as seven-year-olds, come through the international ranks and ended up leading the crew of a yacht in the America's Cup, the equivalent of Formula One racing on water. But they had never won anything together until yesterday, when they battled through the most technically challenging of Olympic sailing categories, the Star class, to give Team GB a fourth gold medal.

As they crossed the line in the final race of the sailing regatta ahead of Sweden, the only crew who could realistically have snatched gold from around their necks, tears welled in Simpson's eyes. For him, it was the first big victory of his career; for Percy, it was a spectacular answer to critics who were wondering whether he had anything to offer British sailing after he had struggled since winning gold in the Finn class in Sydney in 2000.

But the friends knew it was their day when they pulled open the curtains yesterday morning and looked out at a stormy Fushan Bay that could almost have been the English Channel. “When we saw the weather, we told each other it doesn't matter,” Percy, 32, said. “We knew we could do it. This was the big one, there was no fun and games, no Olympic paraphernalia. We knew we could do it because we had more talent on board than anyone.”

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Simpson seemed at one time destined to be a permanent understudy, giving up his personal time in Sydney and the Athens Games four years ago to help with training for Percy and Ben Ainslie, who won his third consecutive gold off Qingdao this week. The three are close friends and Ainslie has tried to forget his celebratory hangovers this week to back up the pair every day, even though he finished racing last weekend.

“Ben has had dinner with us every night and been struggling to make it down for breakfast or, at least, to send us a text,” Percy said. “We always felt confident, but there were some scary moments. But when we got up and saw the wind and the rain, we knew. We are Brits, we live for that stuff.”

Even the pressure of being the last Team GB crew to perform in the wake of those three gold medals did not deter the friends of almost 25 years. Simpson, 31, nicknamed Bart after the cartoon character, added: “There is a bigger fear of failure. When they get medals on the first day and you start late, you feel if you don't perform you don't look too flash. But you see the others get gold and you think, 'We want to do that, too.'”

And they did. From sharing Lego on a journey that has lasted more than two decades to sharing Olympic gold medals.