An Egyptian synchronised swimmer has claimed she was forced to spend £200 of her own money on new training kit for London 2012 after Egypt's Olympic Committee gave its 117-strong team "fake" tracksuits.

Yomna Khallaf claimed on Twitter that the gear supplied was obviously not authentic, and athletes have had to pay to replace it.

She wrote: "The bags for example have big nike logo in the front and the zippers are adidas. It's so frustrating that we had to pay extra 2000 [Egyptian] pounds to have other proper stuff to wear so that we can look okay not even good ... We'd rather wear plain white or black shirts than this shitty stuff!"

Khallaf claimed that, after questioning the standard of the kit, she was told by team officials to accept it or "have nothing at all". An EOC spokesman said the allegation would be investigated.

A Nike spokesman said: "Nike was recently made aware that the EOC chose a vendor for its athletes' training and village wear who is alleged to have supplied counterfeit footwear and apparel bearing the Nike trademarks.

"Nike is highly concerned that if these allegations are true, the athletes will have received products that do not meet Nike's quality standards. Nike's authorised distributor in Egypt has sent two official communications to the EOC on this issue and no response has been received."

(Read by CJ Henderson. CJ Henderson is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)