The swimming champ, 71, said she was grabbed by the man but fought back, at her Noosaville home on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

”This guy came out of the gate and grabbed me and I grabbed him by the ear and I kicked him in the groin,” she told Channel Nine yesterday.

”So he had to let me go and he threatened my life and I got really annoyed about that and just grabbed him by the ear and the hair.”

A male friend had made the man lie on his stomach, and made several boys who were with the man sit and wait until authorities arrived.

A spokesman for the Queensland police said that they were unaware of any attack.

”Investigations are continuing as far as police are concerned,” she said. ”Nobody was attacked.”

She said that a “number of males” had entered houses in Noosaville, but none of them were broken into.

”A couple of the men were disturbed while this was in process,” she said. No charges have been laid.