A survey is to be conducted among Australia's team with Athletics Australia President David Grace appealing for those unhappy with Hollingsworth to give specific examples of their complaints. 

Among the first to come out and publicly condemn Hollingsworth is former Athletics Australia national distance running coordinator Tim O'Shaughnessy.

He told Melbourne's 3AW radio that Hollingsworth used a highly offensive term to refer to triple World Indoor Championships and Commonwealth Games gold medallist Tamsyn Lewis Manou during a 2012 meeting at which she was not present.

"I told the CEO what I recalled," O'Shaughnessy said.

"What I was told by Athletics Australia is that no one else in the meeting could recall what happened."

O'Shaughnessy claimed Lewis Manou's complaint was thrown out and that he was made redundant later that year at Hollingworth's behest.

The station also reported that Lewis Manou, the 2008 World Indoor 800 metres champion, claimed that, at the Victorian Institute of Sport more than a decade ago, Hollingsworth told her she did not receive part of her funding because she didn't "beg for it".

Triple Commonwealth Games gold medallist Tamsyn Lewis Manou has accused Athletics Australia head coach Eric Hollingsworth of speaking to her inappropriately ©Getty Images

She also claimed he told her she would "have to see his wife at the IVF clinic" if she wanted to keep running.

"I assume he meant that if I wanted to become a mother, I would have to stop running," 3AW quoted Lewis Manou, a member of Australia's 4x400m relay team that won Commonwealth Games gold medals at Kuala Lumpur 1998, Manchester 2002 and Melbourne 2006, as saying. 

"It was a horrible comment.

"Our sport is in the hands of dictators, not communicators.

"For the benefit of the athletes, there needs to be an external investigation.

"The Australian Sports Commission needs to get involved."

Athletics Australia suspended Hollingsworth last month after he criticised Pearson on the eve of her successful Commonwealth Games 100m hurdles title defence because she did not attend a pre-event training camp in Gateshead. 

Eric Hollingsworth was suspended and sent home from Glasgow 2014 after criticising Olympic champion Sally Pearson, who still retained her Commonwealth Games title ©Getty Images