Insurance firm to demand repayment of $7.5m bonus from Armstrong

Lance Armstrong is now facing the prospect of having to repay millions of dollars in prize money after he was formally stripped of his professional titles.

The disgraced cyclist has been handed a lifetime ban from the sport and has also been stripped of his seven Tour de France victories after world governing body, the UCI, decided to accept the findings of the US Anti-Doping Agency's investigation into Armstrong.

USADA has found that the Texan had been at the centre of the greatest doping conspiracy in the history of sport.

An American insurance company, SCA Promotions, has already indicated that it will now demand that Armstrong repay the $7.5m bonus that he earned after winning his sixth Tour de France in 2004.

Despite accepting the findings of the USADA report, UCI president Pat McQuaid has confirmed that he intends to press ahead with with his defamation case against Irish sports journalist Paul Kimmage.

The renowned anti-doping campaigner is being sued by McQuaid and his predecessor, Hein Verbruggen, because of allegations of corruption against the UCI that were made in an article that he wrote for the Sunday Times.

Kimmage has said he is ready to take the fight into the courtroom.

Mr Kimmage said: "I intend to go to Switzerland with every means at my disposal, I intend to charter a jumbo jet full of people who have suffered because of his (McQuaid's) negligence and incompetence and because of Verbruggen's negligence and incompetence.

"But I am not going to say that there wasn't a part of me listening to that today that said 'this is going on', I have to live with that, but look I accept that."