奥运会回放：里约奥运会，VOA如何以运动员为特色进行报道？

AS IT IS 2016-08-25 Olympic Rewind: How Did Athletes Featured by VOA Perform in Rio? 奥运会回放：里约奥运会，VOA如何以运动员为特色进行报道？

VOA Learning English featured a number of athletes who were to compete in the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

During the closing ceremony Sunday night, Rio’s mayor passed the Olympic flag to the city of Tokyo, Japan. In the highlight of the night, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived at the Maracan? stadium dressed as the famous video game character Super Mario.

Japan will host the next Summer Olympics in 2020.

But, it is worth looking back to find out how some of the athletes we wrote about in VOA Learning English performed in Rio.

We wrote about refugee athletes from South Sudan who trained at the Tegla Loroupe center in Kenya.

Rose Nathike Lokonyen competed in the 800-meter race in Rio de Janeiro. She did not run fast enough to advance out of the preliminary round.

VOA Learning English also wrote about some of the Taekwondo athletes from Ivory Coast. There were 50 athletes from the continent of Africa competing in sports like Taekwondo and Judo¹. Three of them were from Ivory Coast.

Ruth Gbagbi was in her second Olympics. She competed in the 67-kilogram division. Gbagbi won her first match against an athlete from Egypt, 4-3. Then, she lost to an athlete from France, 5-4. That meant she could still win a bronze medal if she won two more matches. And she did. Gbagbi defeated an athlete from Azerbaijan 7-1 to win a bronze medal.

But that was just the beginning of the celebration for Ivory Coast.

Gbagbi’s teammate Cheick Cisse won the gold medal in the men’s 80 kilogram division. It was the first-ever gold medal for Ivory Coast. Ivory Coast only had one Olympic medal before this year.

Cisse defeated an athlete from Great Britain 8-6 to win the gold.

Learning English also looked at American distance runner Alexi Pappas. She competed at the Olympics for Greece. She trained for the games while making a movie about life in Eugene, Oregon.

Pappas ran in the women’s 10,000 meter race. She finished 17th out of almost 40 runners. But she will always be able to say she was on the track during a world record. Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia finished the race in 29 minutes 17.45 seconds to break the world record by almost 14 seconds.

VOA Learning English wrote about three runners from Kenya who attended universities in the U.S. When they were finished with school, they wanted to become American citizens. The fastest way to citizenship², they learned, was to join the U.S. Army, so that is what they did.

Paul Chelimo, Shadrack Kipchirchir and Leonard Korir are on active duty in the Army, but they are also part of a special program for top athletes. Chelimo qualified³ for the 5,000-meter race and Kipchirchir and Korir were in the 10,000 meter race.

Korir finished 14th and Kipchirchir finished 19th. But in the 5,000-meters, Chelimo won the silver medal. Chelimo finished less than one second behind Mo Farah of Great Britain.

At first, Chelimo thought he had won the silver medal. But then he was told that he was disqualified. Officials said he went out of bounds at one point in the race. But after studying video, judges from the International Association of Athletics⁴ Federations⁵ awarded Chelimo the silver medal.

Words in This Story

feature – n. a special story or section in a newspaper or magazine

preliminary round – n. a stage of a sports competition in which each player or team plays against an opponent and the winner is allowed to continue to the next stage

taekwondo – n. a style of fighting that originated in Korea and that uses kicks and punches but no weapons

judo – n. a sport developed in Japan in which opponents attempt to throw or wrestle⁶ each other to the ground

medal – n. to have the skills that are required or do the things that are required to become a member of a team or to be allowed in a competition

qualify – v. to have the skills that are required or do the things that are required to become a member of a team or to be allowed in a competition

out of bounds – adj. outside the area in which a game is played

1 judo   

n.柔道

参考例句：

• The judo is a kind of fighting sport.柔道是一种对抗性体育活动。
• Which is more important in judo, strength or techniques?柔道运动中，力量和技术哪个更重要？

2 citizenship   

n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份)

参考例句：

• He was born in Sweden,but he doesn't have Swedish citizenship.他在瑞典出生，但没有瑞典公民身分。
• Ten years later,she chose to take Australian citizenship.十年后，她选择了澳大利亚国籍。

3 qualified   

adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的

参考例句：

• He is qualified as a complete man of letters.他有资格当真正的文学家。
• We must note that we still lack qualified specialists.我们必须看到我们还缺乏有资质的专家。

4 athletics   

n.运动，体育，田径运动

参考例句：

• When I was at school I was always hopeless at athletics.我上学的时候体育十分糟糕。
• Our team tied with theirs in athletics.在田径比赛中，我们队与他们队旗鼓相当。

5 federations   

n.联邦( federation的名词复数 )；同盟；联盟；联合会

参考例句：

• These problems are women's special problems and special work of women's federations. 这样的问题，就是妇女的特殊问题，就是妇联的特殊工作。 来自互联网
• The Bridge Federate is a feasible solution to achieve multi-federations interconnection. 基于桥接成员实现多联邦互连是目前较为通用和可行的方法。 来自互联网

6 wrestle   

vi.摔跤，角力；搏斗；全力对付

参考例句：

• He taught his little brother how to wrestle.他教他小弟弟如何摔跤。
• We have to wrestle with difficulties.我们必须同困难作斗争。