Bobridge, who announced his retirement from professional cycling aged 27 in December due to arthritis, appeared in Perth Magistrates Court in Australia today and was charged with six counts of "selling significant quantities of MDMA".

It followed his arrest yesterday in his home in the Perth suburb of Yokine.

According to Perth Now, six unmarked police cars arrived at his home with sniffer dogs as part of an undercover sting spanning several parts of the city.

He has been accused of selling different batches of the recreational drug - more commonly known as ecstasy - between March and July of this year.

Bobridge has now been released on a AUD$10,000 (£6,100/$7,900/€6,700) bail after surrendering his passport and promising not to leave the state.

He is expected to return to court next month.

It is considered very likely that he will receive a prison sentence if found guilty. 

Police have reportedly said that 61 people have already been charged as a result of the operation.

Bobridge won 17 Olympic, Commonwealth and World Championship medals before his retirement last year.

His two Olympic medals came in the men's team pursuit at both London 2012 and Rio 2016, where Australia ended as the runner-ups to Britain on both occasions.

The Australian claimed a gold medal in the discipline at the 2010 and 2011 World Championships.

The Adelaide-born cyclist also secured the individual pursuit title in the latter event.

Bobridge also boasts four Commonwealth Games gold medals having won the individual and team pursuit titles at Delhi 2010, before defending the crowns four years later in Glasgow.

He remains the individual pursuit world record holder after setting a time of 4min 10.53sec at the Sydney Velodrome in 2011.

He also competed at four editions of the Giro d’Italia and fell narrowly short of breaking the International Cycling Union hour record in 2015, becoming one of the first to attempt the event under its current format.

His struggles with rheumatoid arthritis were highlighted last year after his medical data was published by the hacking group Fancy Bears.

Details of forms he had submitted for therapeutic use exemptions revealed he required medication for his hands and wrists and that he had received permission to take glucocorticoids and prednisolone, both used to treat inflammatory conditions.