Lance seeks £2.8m pay day

Lance Armstrong, the six times Tour de France winner, has become embroiled in a legal dispute over a £2.8million bonus after the company due to pay it demanded a probe into drugs allegations directed at the American cyclist.

Texas company Tailwind Sports, which owns Armstrong's US Postal racing team, and SCA Promotions Inc, its insurers, are in a battle after SCA decided to withhold payment of the bonus until they have looked into the details of allegations against him contained in LA Confidential, an unauthorised biography.

Armstrong is fighting a £3m legal battle against the publishers and authors of the book, which went on sale in France in June, saying the claims that he used performance enhancing drugs throughout his career are unfounded and based on circumstantial evidence.

Armstrong says he never broke anti-doping rules or breached detailed testing regulations.

Following Armstrong's third Tour win in 2001, Tailwind Sports paid SCA a £233,000 premium to cover future bonus payments. They paid a total of £2.5m in bonuses for his first five Tour wins.

Armstrong was due to be paid a bonus of £2.8m for winning this year's race but instead the money has been transferred to a holding account by SCA until the company is satisfied the book's allegations are not true.

Tailwind claim SCA is contractually obliged to pay the money immediately.

"We are trying to determine the validity of the claim, said SCA lawyer John Bandy. "Right now we are investigating allegations from the book. If we determine it (the claim) is valid we will turn over the custodial account at once.

"We have asked certain questions deriving from the book LA Confidential. We have requested some medical data."