Huang Yuting, a 17-year-old girl from Zhejiang Province, won three gold medals in shooting(射击) at the Asian Games in Hangzhou. “I feel     1     (excite) about the result because the effort is worth it!” Huang said in an interview. When she was 10, she     2     (select) to be a member of the shooting team in a local children sports school. In 2020, she joined Zhejiang Provincial Shooting Team and earned her place by training hard. “This is a sport in which I fight against myself. I will always work hard and try     3     (I) best!” Huang said.

2 . As a female athlete in 2021, I think about change all the time. I think about how much has changed since I first began skiing, and the boys didn’t think I belonged because I was a girl. Now we ski together and they know I belong.

And I think about how much still needs to change, and how we need to keep pushing the envelope for women athletes to be treated as fairly as the men. And how I can use my voice and my platform to help make that change. I’ve always dreamed big. My mom taught me that from day one. She taught me that the first person to believe in you must be yourself.

The ideas of “good” and “bad”, when it comes to the way you behave or portray yourself, are so subjective (主观的), that if you attempt to conform (顺从) to them, you’ll never fully succeed. I learned that the only way to fit a mold, is to create one for yourself, and that takes courage. And now I want to be a strong female role model for all young girls. To show them what they can accomplish through sport, through skiing. To show them what is possible when you have the courage to dream big, and follow those dreams.

One of my mottos is: “If it were easy, it wouldn’t be a dream.” Adversity (逆境) and possibility of failure are what make life interesting. When I learn a new trick, it’s okay to be scared. It’s okay that I will probably fall a million times before I get it right. It takes courage to be able to fall. But then, you use that courage to your advantage, and you work harder, and practice more, and eventually you land that new trick.

Volleyball star Zhu Ting,     1    is the captain of the Chinese women’s volleyball team, makes     2    to Top 10 of Chinese sports stars. The 27-year-old     3    (award) the most valuable player during China’s run to Olympic gold at the Rio 2016 Games.

But she wants to leave a legacy (遗产)     4    (big) than just being a well-known name to sports fans. “There has never been a ‘best player’,”she said. “Only a better one.”

Even on the court, Zhu says her “captain” label doesn’t apply and she is just one of the squad (运动队) members. “Being the captain is just an idea to the public, but within the team, I’m not really ‘leading’ my     5    (teammate). They don’t call me captain and they call me Zhu.”

She has told China Central Television that she aims     6    (compete) in three Olympics.

That would mean     7    (go) until the Paris 2024 Games at least. “    8    (personal), I would like to be able to do this, but it will take another five or six years and I hope my competitive ability can be maintained (保持),” Zhu said. “I must keep my advantage in the field, and as a member     9     the Chinese women’s volleyball team, I also have the     10    (responsible) to lead our younger members by improving myself.”

4 . On Sunday, Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia shocked the running world by breaking the women’s world record for the marathon by over two minutes. Assefa finished the Berlin Marathon in just 2 hours, 11 minutes, and 53 seconds.

But Assefa’s record was far beyond what most people expected. After all, it was only her third time running a marathon.

“I wanted to break the marathon world record,” she said, “But I couldn’t imagine that it would result in a time under 2:12.”

When Assefa was younger, she started by running short races, called sprints. Then she became a middle-distance runner, running the 800 meters (half mile) race. Her best time in the 800 meters was 1 minute and 59 seconds.

Last March, she ran her first marathon. Then last September, she entered the Berlin Marathon. She won, and set a new women’s record for the course, finishing in 2:15:37.

This year, she ran almost four minutes faster than she did last year. In both races, Assefa ran faster in the second half of the race than she did in the first half.

Her time of 2:11:53 was over two minutes faster than the old women’s record (2:14:04), which was set in Chicago in 2019 by Brigid Kosgei of Kenya.

When she finished the race, Assefa kneeled down and kissed the pavement before raising her arms in victory.

Though Assefa made it look easy, she said winning the race “…was the result of hard work.” Assefa was coached by Gemedu Dedefo, who has helped train many Ethiopian star runners.

7 . In the ever-changing world of women’s artistic gymnastics, there has been a gymnast for more than three decades: Oksana Chusovitina.

The 48-year-old had said with certainty that her final competition would be the Tokyo 2020 Games. With no fans in the stands to honor her legendary career (职业生涯) , judges, coaches and other athletes did their best to give her a party worthy of all she’d given the sport. After she thanked them through tears in her eyes, she told media that was her swansong.

However, just a few months after the Tokyo Olympics, Chusovitina said that she would return to training, dreaming of one final medal at a major competition —the Asian Games—for Uzbekistan. “I just can’t finish my career without a medal for my motherland,” she said on her Instagram story.

Chusovitina first competed in the 1992 Olympics as part of the Unified Team and won a team gold medal there. Though she represented (代表) Uzbekistan in the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympics, her second Olympic medal came some 16 years later in the 2008 Olympics. Chusovitina, then representing her third nation, Germany, where better medical treatment was provided for her sick son, got the silver medal.

And now, her story continues. The historic eight-time Olympian has started her ninth trip to the 2024 Paris Olympics. At the first two World Cup stops of the season she won bronze medals. “Thank you all so much for the support,” she wrote on Instagram. “First start, first medal.”

“More to come,” added the gymnast, whose motto is “I’d rather try today than regret tomorrow”.

9 . Chloe Covell is professional rugby (橄榄球) player Luke Covell’s daughter. Despite her famous father’s footy past, rugby is never on Chloe’s list. Then at six years old, she began to dream about sports. “The X Games was on TV. I saw American skateboarder Nyjah Huston skating. Seeing the tricks he was doing was exciting. It just hit me. I knew that was what I wanted to do,” Chloe explained.

Picking up an old skateboard in her backyard, Covell started skating. Just six years after that, she has become one of Australia’s best skateboarding talents, winning various awards and titles. “I’m so excited the sport has been included in the Olympic Games,” Chloe said, setting qualifying for the 2024 Summer Olympics as her present goal.

While her classmates are completing their schoolwork at home, Chloe tries to catch up on her studies between flights to Brazil, Italy, Japan and the US. At the first stop of the 2023 Street League Skateboarding tour in Chicago, Covell experienced her first taste of frustration (挫折) after she was unable to finish a trick successfully. But already she seemed to have moved on from the experience. “Every time I complete a competition, I look back on it to see what I could have changed or done better,” Covell said. “I did get a little discouraged in Chicago, but I’ve learnt from that now.”

The teenage girl has rapidly built a big following online, having more than 46,000 Instagram followers. She also signed with a range of sponsors, including Nike. And she’s glad to get to know many other players. “I admire Rayssa Leal very much. We played a video game called ‘Skate Together’ when we first met at the X Games in Japan,” Chloe said. She also took a picture with celebrated skateboarder Nyjah Huston. “I was so scared when I started competing at the age of eight or nine. But it’s getting easier now since I know a lot more people. They’re all funny, nice and amazing skaters. They push me to be better,” Chloe shared.

For Chinese swimmer Qian Hongyan, competing at the 4th Asian Para Games (亚残运会) is more about testing her limits. More     1    (important), the 26-year-old will keep encouraging others to face life’s challenges. “It’s great to participate in the Games     2     the first time. I want to inspire more people with disability,” said Qian in an interview.

    3    (know) as the “basketball girl”, Qian has been an inspiration for years. She lost both her legs due to     4     car accident in 2000. Then, she became familiar to people because of a picture of her as a kid sitting inside half of a basketball,     5     acted as protective equipment to help her move around on the ground.

In 2007, she began training in swimming. It     6    (be) hard in the beginning. Without both legs, keeping     7    (her) above water felt like an impossible task. However, with years of hard work, Qian improved,     8    (become) a national team swimmer at the Rio Paralympics in 2016. She finished     9    (nine) in the women’s 100m breaststroke.

Coach Zhang Honghu has seen Qian’s growth from a shy girl into an excellent athlete. “I hope she will keep pushing her limits and have a great life in the years     10    (come),” said Zhang.