【英语听和读】沼泽潜行

 Callum: Hello, I’m Callum Robertson and this is Entertainment. Next Monday, August

27th

, in Britain is a national holiday or what we call a bank holiday and several

thousand people will be heading off to a small village in Wales which is

hosting the World Bog¹ Snorkelling³ Championships.

What is this sport Bog Snorkelling? I hear you ask. Well first you have to know

what a bog is. A bog is an area of land in the countryside which is always soft

and wet. When you walk through it your feet might get stuck and it makes a

squelching⁴ noise. The particular bog in question is what's known as a peat bog.

So that's a bog. And what about the snorkelling part? Well normally

snorkelling is what you do on holiday, in the warm blue sea. Swimming with

your head underwater breathing through a plastic tube called a snorkel².

Bog Snorkelling then is a combination of those two things. And to learn more

about it I spoke⁵ to one of the organisers and founders⁶ of the World Bog

Snorkelling Championships, Gordon Green.

Gordon Green

What we’ve done is we’ve dug a trench⁷ in the peat bog so that it fills with a nice dirty water.

Callum: Gordon says that they dig a trench in the bog. A trench is a kind of an oblong

hole. And when they dig this trench in the bog it fills up with dirty water which

the competitors, the people taking part in the competition have to swim through.

Listen again, this time listen out for how long the trench is and how far the 

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competitors have to swim. Gordon uses the traditional measurement of a yard.

A yard is about .9 of a metre, so nearly a metre.

Gordon Green

What we’ve done is we’ve dug a trench in the peat bog so that it fills with a nice dirty water

and the trench is 60 yards long and the competitors have to swim two lengths of this bog so

they’re swimming 120 yards.

Callum: The trench is 60 yards long and the competitors have to swim two lengths,

that's 120 yards which is about 110 metres. Gordon goes on to explain more

about the rules.

Gordon Green

Bog snorkelling is a sport where you have to breathe, through a snorkel, you can use flippers

and the majority do use flippers, but you have to breathe through a snorkel and you’re not

allowed to do a crawl or a breast stroke, you have to keep your arms straight in front of you or

do a dog paddle.

Callum: The competitors aren't allowed to use any traditional swimming strokes, like

front crawl or breast stroke though they can use what we call a doggy paddle, a

way of swimming using your arms like a dog uses its legs when swimming.

They have to breathe through a snorkel and they can wear flippers, or fins⁸, on

their feet.

 Swimming is now not the only bog snorkelling event. If you want to you can

also try Mountain Bike Bog Snorkelling. I asked Gordon to describe that.

Gordon Green

We’ve dug a deeper trench and we have to have a special bike. What we do is fill the frame

full of lead, put water in the tyres instead of air. We’ve got lead weights on the bike and the

person that’s riding it has to wear a lead belt round his waist or her waist and also lead in a 

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rucksack so we’ve got the correct buoyancy so that when you cycle under the water you can

actually do that and breathe through your snorkel. They have to then cycle underwater and it’s

like cycling in treacle⁹, it’s very hard work and that’s become a very popular event as well.

Callum: So the trench for the Mountain Bike event is deeper and the contestants¹⁰ ride a

special bike with lots of weight. They have to cycle through the bog,

underwater, again, breathing through the snorkel!

I then asked Gordon how it started, where did the idea come from to get people

to swim through dirty water in a field and how long has it been going.

Gordon Green

Well it started like all these things do late a night in a pub when we’d all been drinking and

we were wanting to raise some money for a charity at the time and someone said that they

didn’t have anything in their garden but a bog and then someone else said well let’s swim in it

and that’s how it came along.

When was this?

That was some 18 years ago now, so we’ve been running it a long time.

Callum: Gordon says it started 18 years ago with a plan after a night drinking in the pub!

But it is all in for a good cause. The money that they get from the competition,

you have to pay to enter and pay to go and watch, goes to support a charity.

1 bog   

n.沼泽；室...陷入泥淖

参考例句：

• We were able to pass him a rope before the bog sucked him under.我们终于得以在沼泽把他吞没前把绳子扔给他。
• The path goes across an area of bog.这条小路穿过一片沼泽。

2 snorkel   

n.泳者所戴的通气管，潜水艇的吸、排气装置

参考例句：

• With a snorkel,however,a diver can stay under water for quite a long time.潜水员携带一根通气管就可以在水下呆很长时间。
• I did buy a mask and fins and a snorkel.我买了面镜、蛙鞋和一个呼吸管。

3 snorkelling   

v.使用水下呼吸管潜游( snorkel的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The planned snorkelling was cancelled due to rough waves. 原计划进行的潜泳因巨浪而被迫取消了。 来自互联网
• Snorkelling was amazing, daily seeing reef sharks, parrot fish and sting rays. 浮潜是惊人，每天看礁鲨，鹦鹉鱼和魟鱼。 来自互联网

4 squelching   

v.发吧唧声，发扑哧声( squelch的现在分词 )；制止；压制；遏制

参考例句：

• I could hear his broken shoes squelching in the water. 我可以听到他的破鞋在水中格喳格喳作响。 来自辞典例句
• The armies got bogged down in the thick squelching mud. 军队都陷入泥沼中，行进时烂泥扑哧作声。 来自互联网

5 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

6 founders   

n.创始人( founder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was one of the founders of the university's medical faculty. 他是该大学医学院的创建人之一。 来自辞典例句
• The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. 我们宗教的创始人把这看作是道德的基石。 来自辞典例句

7 trench   

n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕

参考例句：

• The soldiers recaptured their trench.兵士夺回了战壕。
• The troops received orders to trench the outpost.部队接到命令在前哨周围筑壕加强防卫。

8 fins   

[医]散热片；鱼鳍；飞边；鸭掌

参考例句：

• The level of TNF-α positively correlated with BMI,FPG,HbA1C,TG,FINS and IRI,but not with SBP and DBP. TNF-α水平与BMI、FPG、HbA1C、TG、FINS和IRI呈显著正相关，与SBP、DBP无相关。 来自互联网
• Fins are a feature specific to fish. 鱼鳍是鱼类特有的特征。 来自辞典例句

9 treacle   

n.糖蜜

参考例句：

• Blend a little milk with two tablespoons of treacle.将少许牛奶和两大汤匙糖浆混合。
• The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweet.啜饮蜜糖的苍蝇在甜蜜中丧生。

10 contestants   

n.竞争者，参赛者( contestant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The competition attracted over 500 contestants representing 8 different countries. 这次比赛吸引了代表8个不同国家的500多名参赛者。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency. 两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。 来自《简明英汉词典》