A year after the London 2012 Olympic Games began, Wandsworth-born windsurfer Bryony Shaw, 30, looks back on her campaign, when she finished a disappointing seventh after illness, and how her career has taken a turn for the better since as she won her first ever World Championship medal.

"In the build up to the Olympics I had a huge set back in my preparations. For six months I couldn't shake a bug that came from polluted water in Cadiz where I'd based my winter training.

Staying positive and with the support of my coach Dom Tidey, we got through it, giving myself the best chance of performing in Weymouth.

I could see all the smiling faces of the team around me, and it reminded me how I felt before Beijing, but it was quite an odd feeling, like I was just a bit detached from it all.

I was a strong part of the team yet it was a struggle to enjoy the experience.

Once it was over, although it was disappointing not to get a medal, the whole atmosphere and buzz around the Games really boosted me up again. So many of my friends were just so proud I’d taken part in a summer that meant so much to the whole country. I needed that.

After the Games I gave kitesurfing a try. I was very much part of the group voting to get windsurfing back into the Games, as kiting wasn’t the thing I had focused the last eight years of my life on. But I was told a lot of the skills were transferable so I gave it a go and was enjoying it. When windsurfing was reinstated though I felt like it was back to business and I knew where I was going again.

That was November. With the World Championships in Brazil in early March we had to do such a quick turnaround.

I took all that passion and enthusiasm for windsurfing into the Worlds. It was such a strong fleet of girls, everyone turned up including the Olympic champion, silver medallist and a four-time World champion. It was like after all the knock-backs it had had, windsurfing wanted to put on a really good show.

I won silver and the whole event was so much fun compared to what I would have been doing a year before, training in cold, rainy Portland when I was ill. After the Worlds I felt like I’d come out the other side.

I’ve not been off the podium since, and most recently won gold at the Open Europeans. I do feel I’m sailing more freely and the pressures I felt last year aren’t there. I really enjoyed the Europeans. Even when I did have a stinker of a race I believed I could follow it with a really good result, and normally I did. It was a refreshing way to sail and Dom said he could see from the coach boat that I was backing myself on the racecourse.

Next we're heading out to Rio in early August to go and check out the next Olympic venue.

Hopefully, we will get to race on the Rio 2016 course areas too. I’m looking to get a better idea of what kind of windsurfer I need to be to excel there. Do I need to be lightweight and super lean like for Beijing or is it a venue where knowledge and finesse will pay off?

The 2014 Worlds Test Event then takes place in September, and the way I’ve been sailing so far this year I just want to keep going through the summer enjoying my sailing with the pressure off and progressing because of it."