Former British Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington has admitted that she no longer lets cruel Twitter jibes affect her.

The 25-year-old, who retired from professional swimming last year, is reported to have undergone cosmetic surgery on her nose at the start of 2014.

While the sportswoman is yet to confirm or deny whether she has had a nose job, Adlington has insisted that she refuses to let criticism about her looks get her down.

"At first it definitely upset me," Adlington told the Daily Mail. "I'd burst into tears when I first started reading things, but as I've grown up I've learnt to think, you know what, I don't know them, they've never seen me in real life, they've never spoken to me.

"You've got to be a certain kind of person to sit there, make the effort to find somebody, to write them a nasty message .  You know what? Just block them out of your mind."

Adlington won two Olympic gold medals and two bronze medals during her career.