Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Doping Scandal Taints Famed Bike Race, 08/01/07
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec07/cycling_8-01.html

Initiating Questions:

1. Why do athletes get drug tested?

2. Why might athletes take performance enhancing drugs?

3. What do you know about the Tour de France?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What is the Tour de France? Who won it this year? What is significant about this year's event?

Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador, 24, became the youngest rider in a decade to win cycling's main event, a three week-long race across France. But his unusually slim 24 second margin of victory provided only a small bright spot after four riders and two teams exited the race early amidst allegations of illegal substance abuse.

2. What is blood doping?

The most common performance enhancement used in cycling is blood doping, a process which artificially boosts the body's red blood cell count to deliver more oxygen to its muscles.

To increase their red blood cells, some cyclists use the drug EPO. Because cycling is an endurance sport, the additional oxygen EPO provides can help a rider's muscles recover quickly, allowing them to push themselves harder over longer distances.

In some cases, riders undergo a blood transfusion before a race, injecting themselves with another person's blood that presumably has more oxygen than their own.

3. Other than blood doping how else to some cyclists cheat?

Cyclists looking to gain a different edge utilize Human Growth Hormone and testosterone. Instead of supplying riders more oxygen, these two substances build muscle mass, acting like steroids.

4. Why do professional cyclists cheat?

Some cycling officials believe the Tour's grueling pace can lead riders to seek any advantage possible.

"The Tour is a very, very unique event," Alex Gilady, a member of the International Olympic Commission, told the Associated Press. Because riders cover about 100 miles every day for nearly three weeks, he said it is no surprise they "are tempted to break the rules."

Andy Lee, a spokesman for U.S.A. Cycling said cyclists, along with any other athlete choosing to use banned substances, typically do so because they are motivated by rewards in the form contracts, endorsements and championships.

5. How might cheating scandals impact cycling's image among fans?

Although American Lance Armstrong's seven straight Tour victories from 1999 to 2005 renewed interest in cycling, this year's scandal, coupled with accusations of testosterone use by last year's winner, American Floyd Landis, threatens to tarnish the sport's image.

"We're in a war for the soul of this sport," Gavin Harvey, president of the Versus sports network that televised the event in the United States, told Bloomberg News. Harvey said viewership of the Tour dropped 10 percent this year.

6. How might the recent scandals impact cycling in the Olympic Games?

The recent scandals have jeopardized the sport's standing at the Olympic Games.

"If cycling doesn't resolve this problem, I'd go so far as saying it should be excluded from the Olympics," Swiss International Olympic Committee member Rene Fasel told the AP. "The heads of cycling need to know that if they don't clean up the sport, and really clean it up, then it's good-bye."

7. Not all people think the scandals will hurt cycling, why?

"It could make fans a little bit suspect," he said. "But again, you look at other sports like Major League Baseball, and [despite accusations of steroid use,] has gate attendance gone down? Certainly not."

Lee added that over the past three years, amateur cycling participation has steadily increased. While this year's Tour may be spoiled by doping, he said, cycling remains a sport that anyone with a bike can easily take part.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Why shouldn't professional riders be permitted to use performance enhancing drugs? How is this different than a wealthy rider being able to purchase better equipment?

2. How have drug scandals in sports changed your opinion of professional athletes? Would you stop watching a favorite player or team if you knew that they were using performance enhancing drugs? Why or why not?

3. Research other sports rocked by drug scandals. How are they similar to cycling? How are they different? How has the public reacted to these incidents? What has been the outcome for particular individuals or sports in general?

Write a 300-500 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.