READING – Fill the gaps
Read the following articles about various sports and fill in the names of sports below (it is not necessary to use all)
SKITTLES, AMERICAN FOOTBALL, CRICKET, RUGBY, GOLF, BOWLING, BOWLS
……… is a cross-country game played by striking a small ball with various clubs from a series of teeing grounds into a like series of holes on a course. The player who holes his ball in the fewest strokes wins. The game originated in Scotland and has spread from obscure antiquity to worldwide popularity. Its players participate at every level, from recreational ………to popular televised professional tournaments. Despite its attractiveness ………is not a game for everyone, it requires a high degree of skills that is honed only with great patience and dedication, and it requires an investment in equipment and fees that persons of average means may not feel worthwhile. The novice is often discouraged by these factors.
The origin ………is uncertain. The game was first definitively recorded at Guildford in Surrey at the end of the 16th century, and the first known set of rules was written in 1744. The Marylebone ………Club, which is the world governing body of the sport, was formed in 1787. It is a game played with bat and ball between two teams of 11 players each on a large field, which centres upon two upright wickets, each defended by a batsman. A bowler throws the ball (with a straight-arm, usually overhand delivery), attempting to put out the batsman by hitting the wicket or in other ways. Runs are scored each time that the batsmen exchange positions without being put out.
Lawn ………, outdoor game in which a ball (known as a bowl) is rolled toward a smaller stationary ball, called a jack. The object is to roll one’s ……….so that they come to rest nearer to the jack than those of an opponent’s bowl or the jack. A form of ……….was played in ancient Egypt, and by the Middle Ages the game was well-known in continental Europe. The International Bowling Board. The ruling body of lawn………, was founded in 1905.
………was played for centuries in public houses or clubs, mostly in western England and the Midlands, southern Wales, and the Lothian region of Scotland. The rules and methods of scoring varied from place to place, but the basic principle of bowling a wooden or rubber ball (weighing about 10 pounds – 4,5 kilograms) at nine large, oval-headed pins, set in diamond formation 21 feet (about 6,5 m) away, remained the same.
According to tradition, ………began in 1823, when, during a game of football at ………School, William Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it. The run was a clear violation of the rules of the game that later came to be called association football or soccer, but the illegality proved popular and led to the game of ………, the primarily ball-handling game, as distinct from soccer, the primarily kicking game. In 1846 rules of ………were published at the school. In 1863 the Football Association (FA) was formed in London, and after a futile attempt to reconcile the rules to accommodate the two games, ……… was left outside the FA.
A series of deaths and injuries in 1905 prompted President Theodore Roosevelt to call for more changes to make the game safer. Rules were thus created that included the introduction of the forward pass, new formations, and the prohibition of blocking with extended arms. In 1910 the National Collegiate Athletic association (NCAA) was formed to govern American intercollegiate competition. Postseason, or “bowl”, games played between leading college teams, became popular and now include the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Sun Bowl, Cotton Bowl, and Gator Bowl. Professional ………began in 1890s, but it was not until the rise of television after World War II that it became one of the dominant American sports.
Boxing
Complete this newspaper report of a boxing match with these words and phrases:
FIRST ROUND, ON POINTS, HEAVYWEIGHT, BELL, RIGHT HAND, KNOCK-OUT, CORNER, TITLE
Lewis retains title
The world ……. Champion, Lennox Lewis, successfully defended his ………………against American Evander Hollyfield last night. Right from the start Lewis had Hollyfield in trouble and at the end of the …………………., Hollyfield was clearly very relieved to get back to his…………… The ……….went for the second round and Lewis immediately knocked his opponent down with a huge ……..and it seemed only a matter of time before Lewis would by a ………..But Hollyfield recovered and as the fight went on he got increasingly stronger, causing the champion serious problems. In the end it went the full twelve rounds and Lewis was quite relieved to win……….
Read the following text and match the appropriate title to each paragraph.
- The rebirth of a tradition
- War and conflict in the Games
- The success of the Games
- Keeping the Games fair
- Establishing the tradition
In the text find a word that means:
- The rebirth of a tradition
- War and conflict in the Games
- The success of the Games
- Keeping the Games fair
- Establishing the tradition
- …. In 1896 a French nobleman Pierre de Coubertin, welcomed athletes from thirteen countries to compete in the first Olympic games in Athens. Of course, this even was not the first of its kind. Rather, it was modelled on the ancient Greek Olympic Games held between city states during the “Golden Age” of Greece. The modern version of the games, however, is very different from the original ones.
- …. The original Olympics, in fact. Had very little to do with sports at all. Of all the games held throughout Greece. Those staged at Olympia in honour of Zeus are the most famous. The record of the earliest Olympics, which took place in 776 BC, show that there was only one sporting event at all: a foot race about 180 meters. In these early competitions, the emphasis was more on cultural activities such as music and theatre. It was only in the 18th Olympics, when the warlike Spartans began participating then many sporting activities such as wrestling, discus throwing and chariot racing began to become more important than the cultural aspects of the competitions. The Olympics continued to play an important role in Greek society until AD 393, when the Roman emperor Theodosius I. outlawed them because their pagan nature clashed with the Christian ideology of the Empire.
- …. Today, the Olympic Games have nothing to do with honouring gods. Rather, they are inspired by the ideal that friendly non-violent competition can foster respect and understanding between nations. In some respects, the Olympics have been successful at this. Almost all of the world’s countries compete regularly in the event, and every four years the games move to another city, thus allowing its participants to come in contact with different cultures. The Olympics have also become incredibly popular thanks to advanced in technology that now allow the games to be broadcast live across the planet.
- …. But the games have also had their share of problems. One of them has been the use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes in the Olympics. To counter this, the International Olympics Committee has set up a team of doctors who check players for steroids and other drugs in their blood. Several athletes have been stripped of their medals because of drug use.
- …. The spirit of non-violent competition has also been disrupted by international politics. The PLO murdered Israeli athletes in Munich 1972 and many countries have boycotted the games on numerous occasions: in 1976, thirty-three African countries refused to take part in the Olympics to protest against apartheid in South Africa, and the United States and the Soviet Union traded boycotts in 1980 Summer Games in Moscow. And the USSR and its all allies doing the same in the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. These problems just go to show that although the Olympic Games reflect some of our loftiest ideals they also reflect some of our worst conflicts.
Read the text and fill the gaps with the words below:
- slope
- skies
- hard-packed ice
- lodge
- poles
- lift
- ticket
- snowplough
- cross-country
- rack
- downhill
- skiing holiday
It was about 11 a.m. on a bright February morning when we finally arrived our ski 1……………, ready for our 2…………….. Being terribly excited, I immediately jumped out and started trying to get skis off the ski 3…………… All my friends, however, went to the side of the road and started picking up handfuls of snow, muttering to each other in low voices. As I picked up a handful of snow, I realised why they all looked so worried. It was 4……………… snow that had been melted by a warm spell and then frozen again. Not exactly the perfect conditions for my first attempt at 5……………….
I was determined to try, however, and a half hour later I was sitting at the bottom of a threatening ski 6………………, trying to get used to standing on skis. My first disaster came at the ski 7………………. I showed the operator my 8………………. And when it was finally my turn, he grabbed a little rope and shoved it between my legs. I was jerked up the slope, and made it about fifteen feet before. I tell off and slid back down to the bottom. It took four embarrassing tries before I finally managed to stay up until the top.
Once at the top, I wished I had never tried, I pushed off, trying 9……………… as my friend had taught me, keeping my 10 ………………. Pointing inward in a little v, but I instantly realised I had no control over where and how fast I was going. I lost both of my 11 ………………., hit two trees and one old lady, and fell down countless times before I reached the bottom with a twisted knee and a wide range of bruises and scrapes. My friends encouraged me to keep trying, but I just shook my head and walked off to the pub, stopping to throw my useless lift ticket in the rubbish can. Next time, I thought, I will try 12……………….skiing instead.
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