Two books about the athletes have been released at the same time. In "The Barcelona Complex" Simon Kuper, a journalist at the Financial Times, analyses how the Spanish football club became a giant, with Mr Messi, its "engine and standard-bearer". "The Master"     1     Christopher Clarey, a journalist at the New York Times, is a more conventional biography.     2    (base) on interviews with the tennis player and his inner circle, both books offer     3    (value) ideas of how sporting greatness     4     (achieve).

Modern athletes are more disciplined than their ancestors who often lived like rock stars and expected their bodies to give out before    5     (get) to middle age. In the early 1970s, Johan Cruyff, another Barcelona footballing   legend,     6    (be) a chain-smoker. He was so unfit that, during his time at Ajax, Cruyff would hide in the woods     7     his teammates did running training, only rejoining them for the last lap. Mr Messi, by contrast, credits a mostly vegetarian diet with prolonging his career and has benefited from his club's focus on     8     science of nutrition, sleep and psychology.

By far     9     (long) serving member of Mr Federer's team is Pierre Paganini, a former decathlete (十项全能选手) who has been his fitness coach since 2000. "A big part of the reason that I'm here     10     I am today is definitely because of Pierre," Mr Federer has said.

Closer to Equality

Left. Right. Left. Right again.

Getting lost in the rhythm of my turns was one of my favorite parts of skiing. Whenever I feel the soft, powdery snow beneath my skis, I feel like I’m capable of     1    .

I started skiing when I was just three years old. While the other children in my group     2     (mess) around, I was busy rolling down the small slopes. Although there were many difficulties, I soon mastered the basic concepts     3     (underlie) the art of turning.

I decided to take my skiing     4     the next level and joined a team when I was seven. Riding the chairlift with my mother, I saw free skiers spinning through the air. I immediately knew which team I wanted to join: free skiing, an event heavily     5     (dominate) by boys.

As soon as I joined the team, I was placed at its       6     (low) level. However, I never stopped climbing the rankings     7     I was placed into the highest group. At that point, I was the only girl on my team. I was put down at first; nobody wanted to ride the chairlift with me. But as time passed, I slowly became more accepted. And this entire process took three years.

In the past, having been forced to assume the roles of stay-at-home and motherly figures, women couldn’t imagine       8     they wanted to be. Even today, in some countries, there are still so many cases     9     people are not yet accepting the idea that women can make their own choices or pave their own paths. But if we are to fully accept these views, we will be able to move closer to equality.

Being a girl in such a sport can be difficult, but I’m actually thankful that my experiences have taught me to face whatever setbacks I meet with in life. I encourage you, all the girls,     10     (step) out of your comfort zone to show the boys that girls are just as powerful as they are.