Tweets of the Week Extra: Amnesty versus the hard line

The USADA report into Lance Armstrong and US Postal continues to bring new revelations and ramifications, with fervent discussion taking place in the court of public opinion every day. To keep up with the tidal flow of debate, we’ve decided to ask the Twittersphere (and our Facebook fans) for their thoughts in response to specific questions we’ve been puzzling over ourselves.

Our question for today (Monday) was:

Opinion varied quite a bit on this one, demonstrating what a difficult issue this is for those who want to strike the right balance in their attempts to clean up cycling. On the one hand, many people thought the sport should do everything it can to eradicate doping even if that means extreme leniency for some – while some felt that fear of reprisal would prevent many from ever coming forward.

And even given the opportunity, there were some who feel sceptical that we will ever hear the whole truth from riders who volunteered information under the terms of an amnesty:

Over on Facebook, views were equally polarised. For some the idea of an outright amnesty was a step too far, leaning more towards less draconian penalties for those who voluntarily break the omerta.

It’s clear even from just this snapshot of views that there are as many different opinions and potential solutions as there are fans. But the one thing everyone had in common was an agreement that something significant – maybe even drastic – needs to be done if the sport we love is to shake itself free of its less than salubrious past.

Thanks all for your responses! Be on the lookout for more questions as new issues and revelations arise.

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