SALLY GUNNELL enjoys a unique place in athletics history:

the only woman to hold the Olympic, world, European, and Commonwealth 400 metres hurdles titles simultaneously. She set a world record (52.74 seconds) in 1993, first in any women's track event since 1980. It is still the British record being chased by Scotland's Eilidh Child.

Since that world title more than 20 years ago, only six women have run faster. Gunnell's time would have won Olympic gold in 1996, 2000 and 2004 and would have claimed a medal in Beijing and London.

Her unprecedented haul of honours includes five Commonwealth gold medals, a European indoor title, gold in the Goodwill Games, gold over one-lap hurdles at four European Cup finals, and in both hurdles and 4 x 400m at the World Cup final. Yet it seemed to have happened to a different person, she told me yesterday, and only now - 16 years retired - is she able to savour what she achieved.

It all began at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh on her international championship debut when success came as such a surprise that she considered apologising to her rivals!

"The naivety of it all - my first major championships. It was so new: the village situation, going through heats, semi-finals and final. It was so raw. Even standing on the line I'd no idea I was capable of winning."

Gunnell, who turned 20 during these Games, had won her first senior WAAA 100m hurdles crown less than two months earlier, ousting her role model, Olympic silver medallist Shirley Strong, as UK No.1. "I just remember the shock, almost, of winning. I wasn't sure what to do: 'Do I jog round? Do I apologise to everyone I'd beaten?' It was a complete transfer to the next stage of athletics."

The UK junior hurdles record Gunnell set in 1984 has been bettered only by world junior and European indoor medallist Diane Allahgreen and Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill. However, just a month after Edinburgh, Gunnell failed to advance beyond the 100m hurdles heats at the European Championships. Seven of the eight finalists were eastern European.

Her late coach, Bruce Longdon, warned Gunnell that at 100m hurdles she would chase the eastern bloc women "forever. Let's not ask why". Suspicions over that era have never receded. It's more than 40 years since the world sprint hurdles best was held by other than an eastern European. Yordanka Donkova of Bulgaria never failed any test, but has held the current record since 1986.

Gunnell said her rivals then "frightened the life out of me".

"The women who lined up with me were enormous. Drugs were very involved, but at the bottom of my heart I knew I wasn't basically fast enough."

She'd worked part time, effectively sponsored for £14,000 a year, doing research. "That took the pressure off. I could pay the mortgage, and if I didn't make it, I'd something to fall back on. If I got a niggle, I didn't have to race around Europe, trying to earn money.

"Am I jealous of the lottery? Yes and no. With Jon (Bigg, her husband) coaching, I can see how it really benefits athletes. The medical side has really moved on, but part of me says you have to be hungry for it."

The couple were once such public property that they had to book their Florida wedding under an assumed name. She is much more relaxed now. "It still amazes me that everyone knows me when I walk down the street. Lots of people want to know what you are doing, want to see the medal. I don't mind that, as long as I can get on with my life, enjoy quiet days when we can pick up the kids and go places we want to go. I've been lucky to be able to do that. I don't fight for attention like some people who don't like not being in the limelight.

"It's nice to be able to hide away, and nice to be asked to do things. I still think I'm very lucky to have achieved what I did, and to still be enjoying what I am doing, getting fantastic opportunities - I still pinch myself. I can pick and choose, but still make a living.

"Sometimes my athletics seems a different life. I look back and wish I'd enjoyed it more at the time. When you are running you are always dead scared of failure, or letting people down. I never felt I could enjoy it to the full. I wish I'd got the balance a bit better. It seemed quite intense all the time. So part of why I retired was to get away from that sort of pressure."

The couple live with their three sons in a listed farmhouse in West Sussex. They are close to the South Downs Way and run there regularly with chocolate Labradors Diggy and Bumble. Sometimes she is on her bike. "I do four or five sessions a week."

The couple have converted an old threshing barn into a gym and her boys are all into sport. The eldest, Finley, showed promise as a footballer with Brighton, but is now consumed by his parents' sport.

"I do a lot of work round health and well-being now - various companies, talks, bits and pieces. It's still tickety-boo after all these years, which is quite nice. When you're competing, you think it will go away after a few years. You have to keep reinventing yourself - we still work hard, but that's what we've always done."

She is a Commonwealth ambassador and looking forward to Glasgow. "I'm not quite sure what I will be doing - talking about how fantastic the Games are, I guess. I hope to be there."