Guardian News and Media/London

She is one of Britain’s most successful sportswomen and a double Olympic gold-medal winner, but the swimmer Rebecca Adlington has revealed that Twitter trolls repeatedly accused her of letting the country down after she won bronze in London 2012.
The 25-year-old said she had blocked thousands of people on Twitter and still regularly received abuse via the social networking site.
“It was something I never expected,” she said. “I have never wanted to be famous, you definitely don’t get into swimming for the fame.  
“I did get upset about it. I couldn’t get my head around why someone would go to the effort of looking someone up, and then sending them a nasty tweet. I still can’t really,” she said. “What’s going on in those people’s lives?”
Adlington said her own self-confidence took a battering as her fame grew. “When it started I was really, really upset, I asked myself ‘What have I ever done to them, what have I done wrong?’ But now I understand that it’s just people wanting attention I’ve learnt not to take it personally and use the block button.”
Despite retiring from competitive swimming after London 2012, Adlington said still received abuse. “People say things like I’m a whale, or I look like a dolphin I think ‘well done, that’s great imagination you’ve got there’,” she said.
“There was one yesterday that just said, ‘You are so ugly’ I thought, to be fair you are to the point, you haven’t wasted any time,” she said.
Although sportsmen and women in the public eye are often singled out for abuse, Adlington, who alongside Katherine Grainger is Great Britain’s most-decorated female Olympian, feels women are criticised for a wider range of supposed sins than men.
“I think women get abused for more things - how you did your hair, if you wore a dress twice, if you’ve got cellulite; we all have to wear dresses twice, we all have cellulite. It’s just one of those things you have to accept.”
Adlington believes about 80% of the abuse she receives is from men, but it is the other 20% that hurts the most. “I find it worse when women message me,” she said. “I think ‘What are you doing? We girls need to stick together!’”
Social media allowed young people to express themselves, but it could also put added pressure on already vulnerable egos, she said.  “I think there is this message that the only way to be beautiful is to be stick thin, or look a certain way. I was never going to be stick thin, I’m 5’10” (178cm), I’m never going to be petite,” she said.
“My advice to younger girls is just be yourself. When I was at school all my friends looked flawless, and I’d turn up with hair that I’d tried to dry with the car air vents while putting mascara on in the car and trying not to poke myself in the eye. But I said, I love swimming and none of them cared a bit and they completely supported me.”
Adlington said she developed a thick skin when it came to abuse.
But unexpected solace came during her tortuous time in the jungle, when she starred in the television reality show I’m A Celebrity.
“I don’t live in the celebrity world, my friends are very normal, so when I was in the jungle it actually was useful to speak to other people who had been through it too. Even just hearing that ‘me too’ helped so much,” she said.  
She welcomes Twitter’s move to introduce a report button but said more needed to be done to stop people opening multiple accounts using false identities, and called for more monitoring of abuse.  But despite the ongoing insults, she does not plan to leave the site.
“People ask me why I don’t leave, but nine out of 10 times people on social media are lovely,” she said. “So many kids message me to tell me they are competing in their first gala, I get so many messages of support, so I don’t want to leave.”
Adlington has a packed summer ahead: as well as commentating on the swimming during the Commonwealth Games, she is also getting married. “Without being big-headed, I’m proud that when I was 15 I was working so hard in the pool. I’m proud I have got two gold medals,” she said. “I’ve got so many things in my life and really, I think those people who criticise you haven’t got much else going on so I just move on.”
Other public figures have been attacked over their appearance and much worse on Twitter. Activist and writer Caroline Criado-Perez, academic Mary Beard and the MP Stella Creasy were among the women targeted. Following public outcry Twitter has introduced an in-tweet “report abuse” button on all platforms.