UPDATE 10.06AM: Troubled swimmer Grant Hackett has accused his brother of assaulting him in a post to social media on Thursday morning.

Hackett was arrested on Wednesday following a disturbance at the home of his parents on the Gold Coast, but later released without charge.

His father, Nev, told News Corp the three-time Olympic gold medallist was “ranting and raving” and had a “breakdown” while his brother, Craig Hackett told reporters that he was “a danger to the community”.

In a cry for help, Craig Hackett said the 36-year-old was “there in body but he’s not there in mind, soul or spirit,” and that he needed serious medical help.

Grant Hackett bit back on Thursday with a post on Instagram that accused Craig of assaulting him.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQjF5vQgIEh/?taken-by=grant__hackett&hl=en

It remains unclear when the photo was taken, but Hackett did not appear injured when arrested on Wednesday.

Witnesses allegedly saw Hackett “going off” and stabbing a knife into a chopping black on Wednesday, the Seven Network reported.

Hackett’s father confirmed that he had called the police in media interviews on Wednesday.

Swimming Australia president John Bertrand offered his opinion on the former champion on SEN radio’s The Run Home on Wednesday.

“It’s a tragedy, alcohol blows him away,” Bertrand said.

“I know that he is extremely sensitive to alcohol much more dramatic than most people … he has demons and that’s all part and parcel of the makeup of Grant at this stage of his life.”

Retirement difficult for elite athletes: expert

Sports psychologist Jeff Bond said almost all professional sportsmen and women went through major challenges post-career, saying retirement “just drops them in a black hole”.

“The majority of elite athletes struggle to fit back into a normal life after their sport because they are so much into their sport that nothing else approximates that,” Bond told The New Daily.

“Athletes find it difficult after sport to fit back in because they are so used to being supported, people running around after them, a daily structure, the adulation they get from other people, they get so used to those things that retirement just drops them in a black hole.”

According to Bond, a former AIS psychologist, it’s the sports system itself that exacerbates the problem.

“To be the best in the world athletes are told they must drop everything to focus on their sport without any distractions,” he said.

“It means they become socially isolated, drop their hobbies, they don’t do anything else. It’s a recipe for going crazy.”

A history of trouble

In April last year, Hackett was detained by police following a mid-air altercation with a passenger on a flight to Melbourne.

He was escorted off the plane after allegedly groping a man on the chest. He was reportedly intoxicated at the time.

In February 2014, the three-time Olympic champion flew to the US for treatment for dependency on the sleeping pill Stilnox.

Meanwhile in 2011, he was accused of trashing his luxury penthouse apartment after a heated dispute with ex-wife Candice Alley.

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– with reporting from James Willoughby