New FPR star Garry McCoy was today recovering in an Austrian hospital after an operation to repair the fractured heel bone he sustained in last week's test at Valencia.

Initially, Spanish doctors in Valencia believed Garry had suffered ankle ligament damage. Following a CAT scan in Barcelona he was then placed in a plaster cast for two weeks.

But he also sent the MRI scans to an Austrian doctor who had treated Garry for previous fractures of the same leg, sustained in 1998 and 2002.

He diagnosed that the heel bone had fractured down the middle and needed screwing back together in an operation performed yesterday under general anaesthetic in Vienna.

Garry said: "The heel was pretty much broken in half and had rotated apart, so the two halves were a bit out of line. He told me that if it hadn't been treated it would have been cutting into the soft tissue for the rest of my life. He only got the scans on Monday and told me it needed doing straight away.

"I broke the bone beneath the tib and fib in 1998 and then the tib and fib in 2002. So there's only really my toes that haven't been broken on that leg and foot!

"I can't walk on it for another three weeks so it's going to be difficult to fly back to Australia, although I'm still hoping to be home for Christmas.

"It's just part of racing but such a shame because I had felt comfortable and happy on the bike - something that I hadn't felt in the last couple of years. It happened at turn three, the left kink, when the bike just didn't seem to get third gear. The heel was obviously the first thing to hit the ground."

Garry is returning to Barcelona on Saturday before travelling back to his home in Andorra.