The message from Liz Cambage on Twitter, which was later deleted.


BASKETBALLER Liz Cambage moved quickly to douse a fire she lit with a Twitter post questioning whether other female athletes at the London Olympics had been affected by the behaviour of swimmer James Magnussen.

Magnussen and most of his men's 100-metre freestyle relay teammates last week admitted to taking the banned sedative Stilnox during a bonding session at a pre-Olympics camp in Manchester.

He also owned up to a series of pranks that involved disturbing some of his female teammates on the same night.

There were no revelations of anything untoward at the London Games, until Tuesday's intriguing post by Cambage.

''Have any other Olympic females athletes spoken out against Magnussen, because it went further than the swim team,'' Cambage wrote.

She followed up with another tweet: ''And I'm talking about the Olympics not Manchester.''

The initial post was quickly deleted, as Cambage posted: ''I deleted the tweet as I have nothing to say, it was a question! Media just went wild on it.''

Later, Cambage tweeted: ''I apologise if my comments have been misconstrued. In no way was my tweet meant to be an allegation against James #magnussen.''

Tuesday's offerings are not the first instance of Cambage causing a stir via Twitter. She questioned swimmer Stephanie Rice's friendship with US basketball star Kobe Bryant at the Games, tweeting: ''I love how Kobe has his wife with him at the Olympics, yet still surrounded by groupies.''

All six men's freestyle relay swimmers - Magnussen, Eamon Sullivan, Tommaso D'Orsogna, Cameron McEvoy, Matt Targett and James Roberts face Olympic bans for using Stilnox, though Roberts has denied taking it.