What a Twit! Gold medal swimmer Rebecca Adlington outs Twitter troll who called her a 'whale' hours after winning another event
- Leeds Metropolitan University student Callum Aspley, 19, accused of sending the offensive message
- He said the Tweet was sent by one of his friends
- Miss Adlington, 23, won the 800m freestyle in Barcelona as she prepares for London Olympics
By ROB COOPER
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Internet taunts: Rebecca Adlington, 23, re-Tweeted an abusive message sent to her - horus after winning another event in Barcelona
Olympic champion swimmer Rebecca Adlington has outed a Twitter troll who sent her an abusive message online - days after complaining about being subjected to vile taunts.
The 23-year-old was called a 'whale' with a 'shark fin nose' in the abusive Tweet, she revealed yesterday hours after scooping gold in the 800m freestyle in Barcelona.
The message was apparently sent by Callum Aspley, a 19-year-old Leeds Metropolitan University undergraduate who is himself a keen sportsman.
However, he has denied sending it at 11pm on a Saturday night – and blamed it on one of his friends.
Miss Adlington re-Tweeted the message for her 51,000 followers to see and said it was a ‘perfect example’ of the abuse she has had to endure.
The swimmer, who won the 400m and 800m freestyle events at the Beijing Olympics, has vowed to ignore the internet altogether during this summer’s games.
The abusive message said: ‘you shark fin nosed ******** , you belong in that pool you ****ing whale.’
Yesterday she received a stream of supportive Tweets from her followers.
One fan wrote: ‘Becky, that's just a lowlife - ignore him because you know how talented you are x’
Miss Adlington, a 400m and 800m freestyle champion, revealed last week she has received a number of vile messages from 'idiots'.
She said: ‘I used to read all the stuff about me. I learned very quickly not to do that.
‘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: ‘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.
Abuse: The vile message sent from @CallumAspley re-Tweeted by Rebecca Adlington as the 'perfect example' of the offensive remarks she has received
Rebecca Adlington has said she will avoid the internet completely during the Olympics
‘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.’
It is not the first time Miss 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.
Reflecting on the BBC incident, the swimmer said: ‘It’s hard for a woman. A guy doesn’t get comments on his weight or his looks. But for women it is difficult because we get criticised for our weight or how we look.’
The double Olympic champion won gold again on Saturday in the 800m Freestyle in Barcelona in the Mare Nostrum series.
She put in an assured performance and recorded a championship record time of 8 minutes 19.86 seconds.
Adlington led from the front and built up a lead of over two seconds at the halfway stage, finishing strongly ahead of Spain's Mireia Garcia Belmonte, the world short-course silver medallist.
Today the student behind the Twitter account that the abusive message was sent from had not yet responded to a request for comment from the MailOnline.
He has however taken his Twitter page down.
He told the Daily Telegraph: ‘I didn't send the tweet myself, I was out with my mates and one of them got hold of my phone and so he must have sent it, it wasn't me.
‘I don't use Twitter a lot and I don't know how to delete a tweet.
‘Obviously I don't agree with what was said, I wouldn't say that kind of thing.’
He added that he does not usually use Twitter and would delete the message.
The undergraduate, who plays for his university rugby team, previously played rugby and cricket for his secondary school in Lichfield, Staffordshire.
He has refused to name who was actually behind the abusive message.
Golden girl: Rebecca Adlington celebrates with one of the two gold medals she won in Beijing four years ago
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2154344/Rebecca-Adlington-outs-Twitter-troll-called-whale-hours-winning-event.html#ixzz1wuLRgV8K
