Australia's Olympic hopes have received a double blow with cyclist Simon Gerrans officially ruled out of Rio with a broken collarbone and Lleyton Hewitt's withdrawal as coach of the men's tennis team for "personal reasons".
Gerrans, considered a strong medal prospect in the road race, underwent surgery over the weekend on a broken collarbone suffered in a crash at the Tour de France. 
Facing a battle against time, the 36-year-old held out hopes of competing in Rio on the tricky, cobble-stoned course, but Australia Olympic Committee officials were informed on Sunday morning his attempt to ride at a third Olympics was now over.
Gerrans flew from France to Barcelona late last week and was operated on over the weekend. After he woke up, he posted on Twitter an X-Ray of his collarbone, showing off the new screws in place. He tweeted: "My new hardware... The surgery went as well as we could hope. Now it's time to put a plan in place."
He later released a statement confirming his withdrawal. "I am a proud Australian and as an athlete there is no greater honour than representing your country at the Olympic Games," he said. "My goal at the Olympic Games was to get the best result possible for Australia. With my current injury my preparation would be seriously jeopardised, and so to my performance at the Games. For Australia to have the best chance to achieve the best result possible, I feel I should be replaced by one of the riders in the squad."
The Orica-BikeExchange veteran crashed heavily during Stage 12 of the Tour. He kept on riding but was later forced to leave the race. There was much hope Gerrans - renowned for being a tough competitor - would fight back and compete in Rio.
Cycling Australia chief executive Nick Green told Fairfax Media on Friday: "Before we have all the information on where Simon is at, he's a member of the Olympic team. Unfortunately, he's a member of the team with a broken collarbone."
Australia's road race chances now rest with Richie Porte, Rohan Dennis and an as-yet-unnamed rider.
Meanwhile, Australia's tennis team has been thrown into further turmoil with Tennis Australia applying at the 11th hour for Mark Draper to replace Hewitt as coach of the men's team.
Already dogged by the ugly public feud involving chef de mission Kitty Chiller that led to the withdrawals of top-ranked players Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic, Hewitt's departure is another blow.
The reason proffered is "personal reasons", but the timing is curious because Hewitt had been desperate to earn a wildcard entry to play doubles following the withdrawals of Kyrgios and Tomic.
Hewitt was weighing up the prospect of partnering with John Peers - who he was forced to play alongside in the Davis Cup loss to the US at Kooyong in   March - but the idea has been torpedoed.
Under messy tennis quota rules at the Olympics, players ranked in the top 10 can partner with any other player within the top 1000.
Because Peers has recently dropped seven spots to 17th in the ATP's doubles world rankings, it means Tennis Australia had no choice but to opt for Chris Guccione.
Late on Sunday, 22-year-old Jordan Thompson from Sydney was included as Australia's third men's singles player alongside John Millman and Thanasi Kokkinakis.
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