Stephen’s grandfather built a simple basket by attaching a piece of plastic to a telephone pole along a narrow dirt road,     1     was near the small town of Grottoes. Stephen spent many childhood hours playing on this     2    (mud) basketball court, where he learnt to be creative and flexible as a player. The bumps and rocks that lined the road under the basket caused the ball to bounce in all directions,     3     which Stephen learnt to know where the ball     4    (go) and shoot with great accuracy.

    5    , Stephen was thought by many people to be too weak and too short     6    (follow)in his father’s footsteps. But he didn’t give up because     7    (play) basketball was his dream. He finally ended up playing college ball at a small, little-known school. His     8    (create) and perseverance made him Davidson’s star player.

He performed beyond everyone’s     9    (expectation) with his accurate shooting and continuous efforts. After receiving the Most Valuable Player award for two years in a row, Stephen explained his philosophy: What he wanted to do was just be himself. Inspiring others to believe in     10    (them), he showed that anything is possible through his self-belief, hard work and perseverance.

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.

After winning the championship in boys’ singles under 14 years old at the ASICS Tennis Junior Tour in Guangzhou in late August, 2022, Wang Fa has     1    (rapid) attracted attention on the Internet. He is known for carrying his tennis rackets in a bamboo basket,     2    (earn) him the name of “basket tennis boy”.

Wang Fa is a member of the Va ethnic group (佤族) in Cangyuan Va autonomous county, Yunnan province,    3     was just lifted out of poverty in 2019. Over the past six years, he, along with his     4    (fellow) at the Yunnan Wild Elephants Tennis Club,     5     ( improve) his skills and physical strength through training that includes running 9 kilometers and swinging his racket more than 7,000 times every day. “If it     6    (be) not for tennis, I would still be helping out my family with farm work back home,” he told China Daily.

Talking about his habit of carrying his tennis equipment in a bamboo basket—a symbol of the agricultural life of the Va ethnic group-Wang Fa said after the match that he carried his rackets this way     7    (honor) his hometown.

Before tennis, Wang Fa was just an ordinary boy from a village. But in 2016, he was chosen by a local club to learn to play tennis. At first, his parents didn’t agree at all because they could not afford it,     8     the tennis club offered to teach him free of charge. Zhang Xiaohong, Wang Fa’s head coach, founded the club in 2014, selecting around 20 talented local children and training them     9     free. “I want to take children to the outside world through tennis,” Zhang said. For Wang Fa, winning the ASICS Tennis Junior Tour title is just the beginning of a promising future. “I will head to the top spot on the     10    (profession) stage,” he said.

Nikhil Kumar is one of the best young table tennis     1    (player)in the United States. Less than a month after Kumar won the right     2    (compete)in them,the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games     3    (put)off until 2021. Like so many other Olympic athletes, he is now trying to stay sharp and in shape.

    4    is different are all the details of his training. All things considered, he says, everything seems to be working. “For my sport, a little lucky that we’re able to have everything indoors, and it’s not taking up too much space and everything,” Kumar said. “Not many sports are as lucky as ours are right now, to be able to have the opportunity to continue playing     5    a daily basis.”

The coronavirus pandemic(新冠病毒)has forced many athletes to be     6    (create)as they try to continue their training. But in some Olympic sports, working from home is fairly common. Kumar has been able to play table tennis with a robot     7    shoots balls at him.

Many competitors are facing tough issues during the pandemic.     8    , some have been lucky. Weightlifter Kate Nye trains at home in her garage. She said, “Everything kind of started shutting down, which     9    (affect)our lives in other ways—but weightlifting wasn’t one of them. I’ve just been going as    10    (plan).”

Deng Yaping, who has set     1     example to table tennis players all over the world, was born in 1973, in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. It was her addiction to the sport     2     led to her playing table tennis when she was only 5 years old. Four years later, she won her provincial junior championship. At the age of 13, she won her first     3    (nation) championship and beat other     4     (competitor) in all kinds of competitions in the following years. She had won 18 championships by the time she retired (退役) from sports at the age of 24. Deng Yaping is regarded as one of the     5     (amazing) players in the history of sport.

However, compared with other athletes, it seemed     6     (extreme) challenging for her to achieve her dream. At first, she     7     (refuse) by the Henan Provincial Team just because she wasn’t tall enough. Her path to success was filled with many other challenges,     8     none of them stopped her. She practised even harder and finally made     9     to the top. Her great determination and mental     10     (strong) have inspired thousands of people. Now, she has become a living legend in the sports field at home and abroad.