Question

1Complete the sentences with the words below. There are two words you do not need. champion compete competitors racecourse penalty sport tournament 1 My team is taking part in a ____________ next month. We’re training hard for it! 2 I get really nervous when I ____________ in a race. 3 Ascot is a famous ____________ in the UK. The Queen watches horse racing there. 4 This is a really difficult event. The ____________ train for months just to take part. 5 That was a great match! I was so proud when my brother scored a __________. 2Complete the text with the correct form of the verbs in brackets. Usain Bolt was born on 21 August 1986 in the small town of Sherwood Content in Jamaica. While he 1____________ (grow up), Usain 2____________ (play) cricket and football in the street with his brother. He 3____________ (love) sports! Then, when he 4____________ (study) at primary school, he 5____________ (start) running. He was 15 when the athletics World Junior Championships 6____________ (come) to Kingston, Jamaica in 2002. He 7____________ (win) his first major gold medal for the 200 m and 8____________ (become) the youngest winner of the event. Many people 9____________ (watch) the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008 on TV when he 10____________ (break) the 100 m and 200 m world records. Mark: ___ /10 3 Read the text. Are the sentences true or false? Sporting heroes What makes someone a sporting hero? Millions of spectators watched Usain Bolt running in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. He broke the world record in three athletics events. At the same Olympic Games, the American swimmer Michael Phelps won eight gold medals and broke seven world records. The world media went crazy! Everyone loves a champion. But at the Olympics there is also another kind of hero. Have you ever seen the film Cool Runnings? It’s a funny film about a bobsleigh team from Jamaica. It’s based on the true story of a Jamaican team who competed in the Winter Olympics in 1988. They lived in a country with no snow, they had nowhere to train and no money from the government or big businesses to help them, but they made it to the Olympics and they raced for their country. The Olympic Games have many stories like this. When Eric Moussambani, from Equatorial Guinea in central Africa, swam in the 100 m freestyle in Sydney in the 2000 Olympic Games, the international media reported it around the world. He didn’t win a gold medal. He didn’t break any records. In fact, his time at one minute and fifty-two seconds was more than twice the time of Pieter van den Hoogenband, who broke the world record with a time of 47.84 seconds. Before the Olympics, Moussambani trained in a twenty-metre hotel pool. He only started swimming eight months before the Olympic Games. The race was his first time in an Olympic-sized fifty-metre swimming pool. And the crowd clapped and cheered for Moussambani until he reached the finish line. These people are not champions and they do not go back to their countries with a handful of medals, but they are heroes because they try. 1 The Jamaican government gave the bobsleigh team money to compete. _____ 2 The team from Jamaica tried to compete in the Olympics, but they failed. _____ 3 The newspapers and TV journalists were interested in Moussambani. _____ 4 Moussambani swam in a fifty-metre pool for the first time at the Olympics. _____ 5 Moussambani didn’t finish the race. _____

Answer 1

1.

1. tournament
2. compete
3. racecourse
4. competitors
5. penalty

2.

1. grew up
2. played
3. loved
4. studied
5. started
6. came
7. won
8. became
9. watched
10. broke

3.

1. False
2. False
3. True
4. False
5. False

Answer 2

1. My team is taking part in a tournament next month. We're training hard for it!
2. I get really nervous when I compete in a race.
3. Ascot is a famous racecourse in the UK. The Queen watches horse racing there.
4. This is a really difficult event. The competitors train for months just to take part.
5. That was a great match! I was so proud when my brother scored a penalty.

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Usain Bolt was born on 21 August 1986 in the small town of Sherwood Content in Jamaica. While he was growing up, Usain played cricket and football in the street with his brother. He loved sports! Then, when he was studying at primary school, he started running. He was 15 when the athletics World Junior Championships came to Kingston, Jamaica in 2002. He won his first major gold medal for the 200 m and became the youngest winner of the event. Many people watched the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008 on TV when he broke the 100 m and 200 m world records.

Mark: 10/10

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Read the text. Are the sentences true or false?

1. The Jamaican government gave the bobsleigh team money to help them train for the Winter Olympics in 1988. (False) (The text mentions that the Jamaican bobsleigh team had no money from the government or big businesses to help them train.)

The text provided a good insight into different types of sporting heroes, not just those who win medals and break records but also those who overcome significant challenges and obstacles to participate in the Olympics, showing determination and spirit.