Armstrong 'will fight back'

Hamburg - Former professional cyclist Tyler Hamilton said he expects disgraced seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong to fight back.

Armstrong was earlier this year stripped of his seven Tour titles and lost most of his sponsors after the US Anti-Doping Agency said he had been at the front of a systematic doping programme.

Hamilton was in the same US Postal team as Armstrong from 1999 to 2001 and helped him to three of the Tour titles. He later accused him of doping during this time.

"You hear very little from Lance, but I think this will not be a permanent state. I fear Lance will hit back," Hamilton said in an interview published in German magazine Stern on Wednesday.

"I think he is suffering a lot. He is a very proud person and thinks that - like Atlas - he can carry the whole world on his shoulders. Now everything is gone, the honour and the glory. I think it will tear him apart that he is no longer a hero."