"I felt, not exactly embarrassed, but uncomfortable," Gunnell said.

"I had never celebrated before, didn't know what to do, hadn't even really watched celebrations. I was shocked, really naive. I did eventually get a flag and run round the track."

Over the years Gunnell would do the same again many times.

She won plenty more Commonwealth Games races in 1990 and 1994, Olympic gold in 1992 and the World Championships a year later in a world record time - but not as a sprint hurdler.

It was after that Edinburgh win that her coach Bruce Longden, with whom she had worked since her early teenage years, told Gunnell what he thought.

"I won in Edinburgh and I thought I was pretty good, and he said 'but do you want to be the best in the world?'

“He knew then that I wouldn't be, at 100, when I was probably ranked 20 to 30 in the world.

"I ran the 100 in the 1987 Worlds and at the very end of the season he said 'go and run a 400 hurdles'. It was probably in the Southern League or something. I thought 'that's going to hurt' but I knew what pain was. I was prepared to have a go, and it just took off.

"I qualified for both at the 1988 Olympics and was eliminated in the heats of the 100 but got to the 400 final. Bruce was a very good judge, had a good overview."

As a 400 metre hurdler Gunnell never looked back.

The period between the start and end of Gunnell's Commonwealth games appearances, 1986 to 1994, featured all sorts of distractions because of political boycotts and the transition of athletics from an amateur to a professional sport.

In Edinburgh, the Games were knocked sideways when half the Commonwealth stayed at home because of the presence of New Zealand, whose rugby team still competed against South Africa when most of the rest of the world would have nothing to do with the apartheid regime.

"I was 20-years-old and completely oblivious to all the boycott stuff, all the politics," said Gunnell.

"I didn't expect to be in the team and I was just chuffed to be there. I wasn't reading all the papers."

Gunnell was in England's victorious 4x400m relay teams in New Zealand in 1990 and Canada in 1994. She won five golds and a silver in her six Commonwealth Games races. 

There were absentees from her final appearance too, though not because of a boycott.

With the World Championships by now well established, and much more money available to athletes, the Games in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1994 were to many an unwanted interruption to the European meetings circuit.

The top Kenyan runners stayed away, as did the great Jamaican sprinter Merlene Ottey, and England's Roger Black. The European Championships were held shortly before the Commonwealth Games and several other British athletes were wavering.

"Quite a few people questioned whether they should be going, saying it was 'only' the Commonwealth Games," said Gunnell.

"I was the women's team captain and I remember having a conversation with Linford Christie, the men's captain, about how important it was for everybody to be there.

"Above all, though, it was the Friendly Games, a chance to relax a bit and enjoy it. When I think back over my athletics years, all the fondest memories are from the Commonwealth Games, the fun, the stories.

"It's less intense, not as big as the Olympics, everybody speaks the same language and you tend to chat more to other nationalities."

Her victory in 1994 made Gunnell the first woman to become reigning world, Olympic, Commonwealth and European champion, as well as a world record holder. Did she remember that?

"To be honest, no," she said. "Not until somebody pointed it out later. What I do remember is having a day off to go out to see the whales."