MICHELLE Wie's glee over her first professional triumph and Lance Armstrong's ride-along calls show how Twitter takes fans closer to their sports heroes, but athlete tweeting is proving to have its pitfalls too.

'Wowww-w-w...never thought this would feel THIS great!!!!' Wie, 20, tweeted shortly after claiming her first LPGA victory this month.

It let fans who had watched her long and winding path, from schoolgirl prodigy to composed pro golfer, share in the moment.

Seven-time Tour de France champion Armstrong is a master of the popular micro-blogging site, and has used it to muster hundreds of fans for ad-hoc rides and runs in cities from Dublin to New York.

The American famously mobilised more than 128,000 Twitter members signed up to follow his feed when his time-trial cycle was stolen during the Tour of California in February.

The distinctive bike was eventually turned in to police. While there was no obvious link between the bicycle's return and Internet forces rallying to Armstrong's aid, police have recognised that online campaigns helped make life tough for the thief or thieves.

But not all sportsmen appear to have the savvy to use Twitter to their advantage.

Nate Robinson of the National Basketball Association's (NBA) New York Knicks did his reputation no favours when he was pulled over in a traffic stop, and joked and complained about it via Twitter while waiting in his car.

American football's National Football League has formulated a policy that prohibits players, coaches and other team personnel from using Twitter or other social-media platforms from 90 minutes before kick-off, until after the post-game media interviews.

The NBA also launched a similar policy, concerned with keeping control of lucrative play-by-play descriptions of games.

The international tennis authorities have similarly cautioned players not to post 'inside' information that might be turned into tip-offs for gamblers.

However, not all have agreed to these preventive measures. American Andy Roddick scoffed at the idea that a player could purposely or inadvertently dispense 'inside info' in a tweet, calling attempts to regulate tennis players' Twitter output 'lame'.

Still it is clear that Twitter and its fellows are here to stay in the sports landscape.

Denver Broncos receiver Eddie Royal, an aficionado of Twitter as well as Facebook, said he likes the give-and-take with fans.

'They're interested, and you want to show them you're a normal person,' Royal said. 'It's cool to bounce back topics with them and answer questions they want to ask directly.'

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