SWIMMERS, coaches and the board of British Swimming rallied to support Bill Sweetenham, the national performance director, yesterday after allegations of bullying were levelled at him in a debate over his style of leadership.

Responding to an article in The Times yesterday, in which it was alleged that the “poisonous atmosphere” in British swimming caused by Sweetenham had contributed to the retirements of 13 Olympic athletes last year, Graeme Smith, an Olympic and World Championship medal-winner and now the national team athlete liaison officer, said: “It is simply untrue. Most of us knew we were going to retire before Athens. It was our time — nothing to do with the regime. Our average age was 27, too old to expect to be in line for winning medals four years later in Beijing.”

Mark Foster, six times the world short-course champion, said he would be “looking to change nationality” were he a young swimmer under Sweetenham now, but Smith put the attack down to “swimmers who have never really operated at the elite end of the sport”.

Denying that Sweetenham was a bully, Smith added: “I have had dozens of calls and e-mails of support from swimmers who have nothing but good things to say about Bill. Yes, there have been heated moments — the truth hurts sometimes, but is Alex Ferguson a bully, is José Mourinho a bully, have shoes been thrown, IQs called into question, is every successful manager in the world a bully because they’ve delivered a hard message in an aggressive manner? No, and neither is Bill a bully. This is world sport. Get real.”

David Davies, the bronze medal-winner over 1,500 metres in Athens, weighed in: “I feel fortunate to have Bill as our national performance director. He has brought us on miles and made us a very professional unit. For me, he has also been a massive influence in winning Olympic and world medals. He has opened my eyes to how tough and dedicated you need to be to succeed.”

Sweetenham described the latest attack on him as a “travesty of the truth”. He agreed that he had called Jaime King, who made the heats at three Olympic Games but never achieved world-class status, “the worst swimmer I’ve ever worked with”, adding: “And so she was.”

David Sparkes, chief executive of British Swimming, said that Sweetenham had the full support of the board. He had been the right man for the job and remained so. “After every major Games the athletes are invited at the debrief to air their grievances and concerns and we have an athlete on the board,” Sparkes said. “James Hickman was on the board. Not one of those athletes now criticising has ever raised any concern about Bill.”

Ian Turner, the Great Britain head coach, said he believed that all the criticism was coming from “people with their own axe to grind”, be that “loss of funding, loss of form, loss of a comfort zone”. It would, he said, “be nonsense to suggest that everyone agrees with everything he’s said and done, but we are heading in the right direction. The guy has done a great job.”

MORE REACTION TO THE ARTICLE . . .

Matthew Syed sparked a rush of letters to The Times yesterday after he accused Sweetenham of “bully-boy” tactics. Here are some of the comments:

“My congratulations to you for having the vision to discuss a deep rooted problem in British swimming; namely, bullying tactics.”