Olympic rower James Cracknell tried to strangle his wife Beverley Turner during an argument, Turner has revealed.

Turner, who married the rower in 2002, has revealed in a book that the pair wrote together that she thought he was going to kill her in a fit of rage, which occurred a few months after Cracknell suffered a brain injury from a bicycle accident.

"I say I've had enough and he needs to get better elsewhere because it is too much for us," the Daily Mail quotes Turner as saying. "I'm angry and exhausted.

"Sick of being bullied, I try to push past James and he flips. He grabs me round the neck and, with one powerful hand, holds me down on the bed. He tightens his grip until I can't breathe. I try to take a breath. For a moment, I genuinely think he might kill me."

Cracknell was hit by a petrol tanker during a 2,500-mile cycle across the United States.