1 . Two world championships were decided this weekend on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In England, the Rugby World Cup was decided. In New York, the baseball season saw its final match. More than 80,000 audiences watched New Zealand win the Rugby championship 34-17 over Australia. The match was held on Saturday at the famous Twickenham Stadium near London.

It was the second world title for New Zealand. Fans call the team “All Blacks” because of their black uniforms. A day later, the baseball World Series came to a close with a win by the Kansas City Royals over the New York Mets.

In the World Series, the first team to win four games claims victory. The Royals won four of the first five games played with the Mets. Kansas City last won in 1985.

The Rugby World Cup opened on September 18, when England defeated Fiji. Forty-eight matches and six weeks later, New Zealand won the title. Going into the tournament, the All Blacks were ranked No.1 in the world.

Every tournament like this has a “favorite”, or the team expected to win. The tournament also has an “underdog” , or the team less likely to win. But the underdog often becomes a favorite. This year in the Rugby World Cup, the “underdog” team was Japan.

Coming into the tournament, Japan was ranked 13th in the world. But after an inspiring showing in the group stage of the tournament, Japan moved up three places to 10th. Aside from the championship game itself, the match that created the biggest surprise came when Japan defeated world No.3 South Africa 34-32.The Associated Press called it “the biggest shock in Rugby World Cup history”.

South Africa was a two-time World Cup champion. Japan had only ever won one match in the World Cup before that game.

With the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games     1     (approach), our city government has recently launched     2     series of activities aimed     3     (popularize) ice and snow sports on campuses.

First of all,     4     can arouse students' interest in ice and snow sports such as skating is held at schools. Besides, skills relevant     5     ice and snow sports     6     (teach) in PE classes. More happily, during the coming winter vacation, students are freely admitted to some ski resorts and outdoor ice rinks (溜冰场),     7     they can enjoy themselves, practice and improve     8     (they) skating and skiing skills. Not only will the activities promote ice and snow sports but they can help students to     9     (strength) their bodies

Anyone interested is     10     (sincere) invited to join us and have fun on the ice and snow.

4 . Caribou Math Competition

Participants: 2nd graders~high school students

Cash Prizes: Yes

The Caribou Math Competition is the only worldwide math competition that is held totally online. This contest is held six times throughout the school year, and students that complete all six tests can compete for the Caribou Cup. Each contest engages students in 60 minutes of math puzzles, interactive questions, and a wide variety of problem-solving activities.

Not only is the Caribou Math Competition open to international participants, it also offers contests to elementary (小学) through high school students. The high school level Caribou Math Contests are divided into two age-based categories. Grades 9 and 10 participate in the same contests, and grades 11 and 12 participate in the same contests.

Cash prizes are given out to the top performing students and schools in the Caribou Cup after the final contest each year, which is held in May. Students are ranked based on the total of their top scores in five out of the six contests. A student's cash prize amount is determined based on their percentage score multiplied by a set dollar amount based on their ranking. Here's how that is calculated (计算):

• 1st place student: $ 100 X percentage score

• 2nd place student: $75 × percentage score

• 3rd place student: $ 50 × percentage score

• 4th and on: $ 30 X percentage score

A new competition has been added to the calendar of world sports events—the Balloon World Cup. We are all familiar     1     the “sport” of keeping balloon up. Most of us have joined in the decades—old pastime of     2     (keep) a balloon up in the air without letting it touch the floor. Spanish soccer star Gerard Pique loved this so much     3     he developed it into an international event. The first Balloon World Cup     4     (hold) in Spain on Thursday. Peru's Francesco de la Cruz was the very first man     5    (win) world champion. He defeated Germany's Jan Spiess in the final with a 6-2 victory.

Mr. Pique got his     6     (inspire) for the tournament from Tik Tok videos that went popular. He loved watching clips of the game     7     (play) by an American family during the COVID-19 lockdown. It then developed from the family's living room into a “Keep-Up Balloon League”. Pique then made the game global. The contests took place on an 8m x 8m court,       8     contained living room furniture as     9     (obstacle). Teams from 32 countries participated. Pique said, “It's something     10     (total) different. Sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone and try new things.” There are hopes that it could become an Olympics event.

9 . Sometimes a race is not enough. Sometimes a runner wants to go further. That's what happened to Dennis Martin and Brooke Curran.

Martin, 68, a retired policeman from New York City, took up running after his first wife passed away. Curran, 46, a philanthropist from Alexandria, started running to get out of the house and collect her thoughts. Both she and Martin got good at running but felt the desire to do more. “The more I trained, the better I got,” Curran said, “but I would cross the finish line with no sense of achievement.”

Eventually, they worked up to running marathon and even longer races in other countries, on other continents. Now both have achieved a splendid and increasingly less rare milestone: running the 26.2-mile race on all seven continents.

They are part of a phenomenon that has grown out of the running culture in the past two decades, at the intersection of athleticism and leisure: “runcations”, which combine distance running with travel to different places. These trips, as expensive as they are physically challenging, are a growing and competitive market in the travel industry.

“In the beginning, running was enough,” said Steen Albrechtsen, a media manager. “The classic marathon was the final goal, but when 90,000 people a year can take that challenge, it is no longer exciting and adventurous. Therefore, the search for new adventures began, and then came the supermarathons.”

“No one could ever have imagined that running would become the lifestyle activity that it is today,” said Thom Gilligan, founder and president of Boston-based Marathon Tours and Travel. Gilligan, who has been in business since 1979, is partly responsible for the seven-continent race.

It started with a casual talk to an interviewer about his company offering trips to every continent except Antarctica. And then in 1995, Marathon Tours hosted its first Antarctica Marathon on King George Island, off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula: 160 runners got to the starting line of a dirt-and ice-trail route and began enjoying another type of marathon with “a little” risk.