London, May 31 (ANI): Olympic champion swimmer Rebecca Adlington has revealed that she has been subjected to cruel internet taunts about her looks.
The gold medallist from the Beijing Games said she had been upset and angry by the comments, mocking her appearance on websites and social networking sites such as Twitter.
Now the 23-year-old has said that she will avoid the internet altogether during London 2012.
Her admission comes just days after it emerged super-toned heptathlete Jessica Ennis had been called fat by "a high-ranking person" at UK Athletics.
"I used to read all the stuff about me. I learned very quickly not to do that," the Daily Mail quoted Adlington, a 400m and 800m freestyle champion as saying.
"It is awful. Even if there are ten nice comments you get one idiot. I've now given up. It upsets me or gets me angry.
"They are to do with how I look, which has nothing to do with my performance in the pool. It's just nasty comments about things I can't control. I can't help the way I look," she said.
The swimmer, who has 48,562 followers on Twitter, said that she regularly has to use the "block button" on Twitter to stop people from sending her vile messages.
"I don't know how people expect to send a nasty message and not get blocked. I won't be checking Twitter or going on it a lot during the Games.
"The messages of support are amazing but you do have the chance of someone saying something that is going to be annoying.
"You don't want that added stress. You don't want to be thinking about that. I think I will just tweet once it is over," she added.
It is not the first time Adlington, of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, has been publicly abused over her looks.
In 2009, BBC panel show 'Mock The Week' was censured after broadcasting "nasty" comments about her by comedian Frankie Boyle. (ANI)