Rebecca Adlington to quit Twitter during Olympics

Double Olympic medal winner Rebecca Adlington has said she plans to leave Twitter during the Olympic Games because she does not want the negative comments to affect her performance.

Adlington, 23, told The Guardian that she finds the nasty comments and mentions she receives so upsetting she has decided to forgo the site during the games. She said:

Adlington has almost 50,000 followers and tweets regular updates about her training, as well as anecdotes about her life.

She complained that most of the nasty comments are about her appearance, and have nothing to do with her performance as an athlete.

Throughout her record-breaking career AdIington has endured a number of high-profile personal attacks on her appearance. In 2009, a year after she won two gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games, she complained to the BBC after Frankie Boyle said she resembled "someone looking at themselves on the back of a spoon."

She said her favourite thing about the site is the "block button."