Unit 6 The Spirit of Sports
Lesson 22
Exercise 1.2
Most people would be happy to
win one Olympic medal.
Imagine winning medals at four Olympic Games!
Chinese athlete Wang Yifu achieved this amazing
success when he won a gold medal at the 2004
Olympic Games in Athens.
He had already won three Olympic medals in the
past:
a gold in Barcelona in 1992 and two silver
medals in Atlanta in 1996 and in Sydney in 2000
Before he went to Athens,
many people had doubted the decision to have
Wang Yifu in the Chinese shooting team:
he was 44 years old
and he was not in good health.
His success proved his ability.
Before the final round,
a Russian athlete has set a new Olympic record
All through the final round,
Wang Yifu had been behind that athlete,
but he scored well on his final shot to win the
gold and set a new Olympic record with a total
of 690.0 points.
Wang Yifu's gold medal was the second one of
the 2004 Olympics and the second for China.
Earlier, his teammate Du Li had won the first
gold medal of the Olympics in the women's
10-meter air rifle event.
Du Li's success was similar to Wang Yifu's.
A Russian athlete had been in the first place
for most of the final round but,
like Wang Yifu,Du Li was able to come from
behind to beat her and win the gold melal.
These two gold medals did not surprise
some Chinese officials.
They had predicted that the shooting team
would win a few medals in the shooting events.
At the 2004 Olympic Games.
China won a total fo 63 medals,
including 32 gold medals.
China had never won so many medals before.
In 2000, China won 59 medals
including 28 gold medals.
Exercise 2.2
Kong Linghui is one of the most famous
table tennis players in the world.
He started playing table tennis
when he was six years old.
In 1991, he became a member of the Chinese
national table tennis team.
He has attended many world competitions
and has won a number of medals.
By 2004, he had already attended three Olympic
Games and five World Table Tennis Championships
By the end of 2003, he had come in the first
place five times, second place four times,
and third place twice at the World Table
Tennis Championships.
And by the end of 2004,
he had alredy won two gold medals
and one silver medal at the Olympic Games.