Lang Ping and Michael Jordan are athletes who are masters in their sports.

When the Chinese team was preparing for the 2015 World Cup, her determination     1     (test). The team that Lang Ping had built was falling     2    .Two players had to leave.     3     (lose) two important players was a big challenge, but Lang Ping did not lose heart. She knew that her young players could win    4     they worked together as a team. Two weeks later, they were world champions!

Michael Jordan    5     became known as “Air Jordan” changed basketball with his graceful moves and jumps. His skills were impressive, but the mental    6     (strong) that he showed made him unique. Jordan says that the secret to his success is    7     (learn) from his failures. Losing games taught him    8     (practise) harder and never give up. In life, Jordan has learnt to share his success with others. The Boys and Girls Club which he started in Chicago    9     (help) young people since 1996. They set good    10     (example) for us and we are proud of them.

It’s never easy for    1    Asian athlete to shine in track and field events. But Su Bingtian, 28,    2     (know) as the “Chinese flying man”, became the first male Chinese sprinter (短跑运动员) to win a    3    (globe) medal in an individual event.    4    March 3, he took the silver in the men’s 60m final at the World Indoor Championships in the UK. In the final, Su Bingtian ran his personal best of 6.42 seconds,    5    (break) the Asian record of 6.43, which he also set last month in Germany.

More impressively, a Chinese athlete    6    (achieve) a milestone in 2004,    7    Liu Xiang won a gold medal in Athens in the 110m hurdles. Inevitably (不可避免地), Su is compared to Liu. “Liu Xiang is my idol and also my friend.” Su told Xinhua News Agency.

As a matter of fact, Su had expected    8    (win) a bronze during the final. “There is no difference between silver    9    bronze. Even a bronze could prove that Chinese sprinters have made breakthroughs in many major world    10    (competition)” he said.

During his life, Dr. James Naismith worked as a doctor, taught P. E. and wrote several books.    1    he never thought it very important, Dr. Naismith is today best known for one thing---he was the    2    (invent) of basketball.

    3    (bear)in Canada in 1861, he first worked at a special sports school in the USA.

One day the school principal told James he was having a problem with the students. Because of heavy snow, the students could not go outside. He told James that they needed a sport that the boys could play indoors and gave him two weeks to think of something.

It was    4    the very last day that James came up with his idea. The “birth of basketball” is said to be on December 21, 1891,    5     two teams from the school played the     6    (one) game. It was quite different from the basketball games of today. It had nine players on each team, and footballs    7    (use) instead of basketballs. Soon after, the game changed to five players on each side,    8     (play) special “basketballs” on the court.

    9    (unfortunate), Dr. Naismith did not live to see basketball become the worldwide game as it is today. However, in 1936, just three years before his death, basketball became     10    Olympic sport at the games in Berlin.

Thousands of fans lined up in the middle of the night to get a glimpse of the Argentina soccer team that won the 2022 World Cup finals ahead of    1    is scheduled to be a day of celebrations in Buenos Aires.

Members of the team,     2    (lead) by captain Lionel Messi, were all smiles as they stepped down from the plane in Ezeiza. They were welcomed by rock band La Mosca singing Muchachos,     3    song that was written by a fan to the tune of an old song by the band. The    4    (fresh) crowned champions of the world boarded an open-top bus and some of them could    5    (see) singing the words to Muchachos.

The bus moved at a snail’s pace as fans surrounded the bus on a highway, eager    6    a glimpse of the players. The players slept at a hotel for a few hours before    7    (board) a bus later on Tuesday to head to the Obelisk, the landmark of Buenos Aires after the team won the country’s third World Cup, and    8    (it) first since 1986.

The World Cup and the success has brought much-needed good news for a country where almost four-in-10 people live in    9    (poor) because of economic depression for years.

President Fernandez said, “Let the happiness that    10    (unite) Argentina with so many countries in the world serve as an example: Our societies need unity and peace.”

Both Paul and I were huge fans of the NBA, and we used to play on the court     1    was next to our building. Paul’s favourite player     2    (be) Tyrone Bogues, who was only 1.6 metres tall, which made him the     3    (short) player ever in the NBA. Paul was only 1.6 metres tall too, and he used Bogues as his     4    (inspire), practising very hard. Although Paul tried     5    many times for making our school basketball team, our coach was not so sure, so Paul was still usually on     6    bench, which was really tough on him.

Our team was playing our main competitors this week. During the competition, a player and I crashed     7    each other and my knee hurt badly, which made me give up the game. The last quarter was about     8    (begin), and my team was behind by 10 points. With our team’ suggestion, our coach permitted Paul to play the game. All the extra hours that Paul had spent     9    (practise) alone paid off. He made shot after shot. When the game ended, our team had won by 2 points. Because of his excellent performance, Paul     10    (praise) by his coach and earned his place on the team.

“Living Legends of Sports” are athletes who are     1     (master) in their sports and also set good examples for others, like Lang Ping and Michael Jordan.

Lang Ping, who is a former Chinese volleyball player, is now the coach of the Chinese national women’s volleyball team. She brought honour and glory to her country both as a player and as a coach,     2     (win) the love from fans at home and abroad. At the 2015 World Cup, Chinese women’s team met many difficulties. The team that Lang Ping built was falling apart because of     3     (lose) two important players.     4     (face) with such a big challenge, she didn’t lose heart. She believed that her players had the     5     (determine) and talent to win by working together as a team. They did make     6    .

Michael Jordan is one of the most famous basketball players in the world. He played so well     7     people called him “Air Jordan”. Not only were his skills     8     (impress), but also the mental strength he showed     9     (be) unique. He says the secret to success is learning from failures. Failure taught him to practise harder and never give     10    . He started the Boys and Girls Club in Chicago in 1996, and he has been helping young people since.

Living Legends

Whether as a player     1    as a coach, Lang Ping brought glory and won medals for China,     2    (make) her honoured by fans.     3    (face) with challenges, she never lost heart. Even though she lost two of her most important     4    (player), she led her team     5    world championship and then to Olympic gold of 2016. Air Jordan’s skills were     6    (impress), but     7    mental strength that he showed made him unique. The secret to his success is learning from failures.     8    was losing games that taught him to practise     9    (hard) and never to give up. The Boys and Girls Club which he started in Chicago     10    (help) young people since 1996.

Before the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, visually-impaired (视力受损的)Chinese runner Liu Cuiqing put a lot of stress on     1    (she) to do well. Finally, she made it. She won two gold medals with the help of her sighted guide Xu Donglin and brought honor and glory for China.

In 2010, she joined the national athletics team    2     was made up of disabled people. She has had to experience countless challenges. “As a blind person, I learn things     3    (slowly) than other people do,” she said. Sports competitions for disabled     4    (athlete) require blind runners to be assisted by a guide. Liu met Xu in 2013 and since then, the two     5    (train) hard together, linked by a thin rope. “To other people, this may just be     6    ordinary rope, but to us, it is the eye, the direction and trust. We depend     7     the rope to feel the turns and the distance between us. Only when she trusts me     8    (complete) is she able to run boldly(大胆地),” Xu told CCTV.

At the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympic Games, after    9    (cross) the finish line, Xu fell heavily because of a pain in his right knee. “In fact, when I was running, my leg was already so    10    (pain) that I could not feel anything. I only had one thought, which was to accompany her (Liu) to the end,” he told CCTV after the race.