The Return of the Champions
“The atmosphere here at Rio de Janeiro is electric! If China wins this point, they will walk out of the stadium with an Olympic gold medal. Zhang Changning serves. Over the net, Popovic dives for the ball. She only just reaches it...and it’s sent straight back to her by the Chinese spiker Hui Ruoqi. Popovic can’t get the ball back this time...and that’s it! It’s over! It’s gold for China! Look how the crowd has gone wild. You can see the joy and pride on the faces of the Chinese fans. And there we see the Chinese players embracing, with tears of happiness in their eyes...It’s a dream come true for China! The Chinese women’s volleyball team is Olympic champion once again!”
The Chinese women’s volleyball team holds a very special place in the nation’s heart. In the 1980s, the team burst onto the international volleyball scene with several major world titles, and an amazing threeset victory over the United States in the final of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. They became national heroes overnight. There was gold once more at Athens in 2004. But winning gold in Rio paints the most vivid portrait of the team’s competitive spirit.
In Rio, the Chinese women’s volleyball team needed all of its fighting spirit after it was assigned to the “group of death”，where it faced several strong opponents in the group stage matches. Despite reaching the quarterfinals as the fourth team in the group, with just two wins in preliminary matches, they were not going to give up. Every single member of the team gave their all to the fight, including Hui Ruoqi who had had heart surgery less than five months previously.
Their perseverance paid off with an epic comeback against the defending champion Brazil in the quarterfinals. Next, the Chinese team defeated the Netherlands in the semifinal matches, having lost to them in the preliminaries. At last，showing a strong will and the steeliest nerves, they played a close match against Serbia to seize gold in the final.
But fighting spirit alone was not enough to guarantee victory. Strong team spirit also contributed greatly to their success. Cooperation between team members is essential. If each individual does her job and works well with others，then the end goal can be achieved. In fact, strong team spirit is more important than the skills of individual players. Zhu Ting, named Most Valuable Player at the Rio Olympics, also identified this as the special ingredient in the team’s success: “Teamwork is the key to China's victory. Thanks to my teammates’ hard efforts, I had the opportunity to show my spiking skills.”
Together, the Chinese women’s volleyball team has fought their way through ups and downs. Led by wellknown Chinese volleyball player and coach Lang Ping, they have continued to aim high. Lang is only too aware that as soon as a team steps off the victory podium, they need to start from zero to prepare for new challenges ahead. In this way, the team begins its journey to the next Olympics.
1. What does “electric” mean in the first paragraph?| A．Competitive. | B．Amazing. |
| C．Nervous. | D．Challenging. |
| A．Because they just defeated two teams. |
| B．Because they met defending champion Brazil. |
| C．Because they met several strong opponents in the group stage matches. |
| D．Because many players appeared on the scene for the first time. |
| A．The Chinese women’s volleyball team got over many challenges. |
| B．The team should start from zero and prepare for the new success. |
| C．The team was led by the wellknown coach Lang Ping. |
| D．The team begins the new journey to the next Olympics. |
| A．The strong members of the Chinese women’s volleyball team. |
| B．The encouragement we feel from the Chinese women’s volleyball team. |
| C．The process of Chinese women’s volleyball team winning the championship. |
| D．The powerful position of Chinese women’s volleyball team in people’s mind. |
