Olympic swimmer hits back at online criticism

Rebecca Adlington hits out at abuse Twitter comments Credit: ITV

Mansfield's Double Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington, has been receiving abusive messages on Twitter after revealing "nasty comments" meant she would be using it sparingly during the 2012 Olympics.

The 23-year-old was catapulted into the public eye after her triumphs in the 400 metres and 800m freestyle in Beijing, with the athlete feted on her return to Great Britain.

However, not everybody was so pleased for the Nova Centurion swimmer - something she discovered the painful way. Now she doesn't read interviews that she has given and neither will she be using Twitter during the Games.

Today Adlington pasted a message that has been sent to her on Twitter, prefacing it with: "I had a perfect example of what has been said in the papers this week tweeted to me this morning. I apologise for the swearing when I RT it!"

She then posted: "How lovely is this person..." before retweeting the abusive message to her followers.

It all follows the revelation by Adlington to a number of reporters that she has been subject to abuse on Twitter as well as negative comments online.