Exercise 1: sample answer

The Tour de France was first held in 1903 and was promoted by a French sports newspaper in order to raise its circulation against a rival (check the paper and details). It was a long multi-stage race around France, which kept readers buying the paper to follow the story day by day. The yellow jersey of the race leader is usually said to match the colour of the paper's pages (check). It grew into the best-known race in the sport.