1 . It is never easy to be a world champion,     1    . The Chinese Ping-Pong Team is no exception. When they train,     2    . If a member starts to get tired and becomes defensive,     3    . The additional activity is usually what he dislikes most and tries to skip all the time. There are times when they are injured,     4    . Somehow the funny part they feel is that in a lot of world games their competitors are not from other countries but are actually their teammates. But what really sets the Chinese team apart is     5    .

2 . Below is a brief description of the process involved in selecting the Nobel Laureates in Chemistry.

September-October-     1     The Nobel Committee sends out confidential forms to around 3,000 people-selected professors at universities around the world, Nobel Laureates in Physics and Chemistry, and members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, among others.

February-     2     The completed nomination forms must reach the Nobel Committee no later than 31 January of the following year. The Committee screens the nominations and selects the preliminary candidates. About 250-350 scientists are nominated as several nominators often submit the same name.

June-August-Writing of the report. The Nobel Committee puts together a report with recommendations to be submitted to the Academy.     3    

September-Committee submits recommendations. The Nobel Committee submits its report with recommendations on the final candidates to the members of the Academy.     4    

October-Nobel Laureates are chosen. In early October, the Academy selects the Nobel Laureates in Chemistry through a majority vote.     5     The names of the Nobel Laureates are then announced.

December-The Nobel Prize Award Ceremony takes place on 10 December in Stockholm.

3 . In the past, people climbed mountains to hunt, or to find grassland for their animals.     1    .

There are three basic types of climbing: alpine (高山) climbing, ice climbing, and rock climbing.     2    . However, rock climbing only requires a rock face or cliff; even if it is indoors!

There are two kinds of rock climbing. One is free climbing. People use only their hands and feet to climb up a cliff or rock wall. The other type is aid climbing.     3     For example, they use ropes to help pull themselves up.

    4     One kind of competition is about speed. Two similar walls are set up next to each other, and the climbers race to the top. The other kind of competition is about decision-making. Each climber is given the same amount of time to climb the same wall, and whoever gets to the highest point wins.     5    

4 . Figure skating(花样滑冰)

Figure skating got its name from the designs, or “figures” that are made on the ice by skating.

Special figures were a part of figure skating in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Very complicated(复杂的) and beautiful patterns invented by the skater were drawn on the ice with the skaters blades (冰刀).Some designs that were created included rosettes (花结), stars and crosses.    1    The only year special figures took place in the Olympics was in 1908. Nikolai Panin of Russia won the event and was Russia’s first Olympic Champion.

Figures were the most important part of the original Olympic figure skating events.    2    . For that reason, the general public was not all that excited about watching figure skating at the first Olympics.

In the mid-1930s, Olympic Champion Sonja Henie, increased the popularity of figure skating.    3    . Her beauty and athletic ballet style increased figure skating's popularity worldwide.

How has figure skating changed since it first started thousands of years ago, and why?

Ice skating began about 4,000 years ago in Finland. The first skates were made of flattened bone that was tied to the bottom of the feet. In the 13th century, the Dutch invented steel blades with edges(刃). In the Netherlands, all classes of people skated.    4    .James II introduced ice skating to the British noblemen in the late 1600s.Queen Victoria also enjoyed ice skating .

Today, ice skating can actually be done year-round since there are indoor ice arenas all over the world.    5    , even though the majority of ice skaters are children and teens.

5 . Tokyo Games send message of hope amid pandemic

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games drew to an end on Sunday evening.    1    .     2    , with the near-empty 68,000-capacity stadium in the Japanese capital offering an alarming reminder of the challenges posed by COVID-19.

    3    . In his speech at the closing ceremony, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach told the athletes, “In these difficult times, you give the world the most precious of gifts—hope.”

“For the first time since the pandemic began, the entire world came together. Sport returned to center stage.    4    . This gives us hope. This gives us faith in the future.” said Bach, a former Olympic fencing gold medalist. “The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 are the Olympic Games of hope, solidarity and peace,” he added.

During the Games, which ran for 17 days, 339 medals were awarded in 33 sports, with skateboarding, surfing, sport climbing and karate making their Olympic debuts.    5     .

Fierce competition to be faster, higher and stronger continued to the final day of the Games, when Team USA made a comeback to surpass China in the number of gold medals.

6 . Don’t Be Afraid to Quit. It Could Help You Win.

The marathoner Molly Seidel has always been a respectable athlete, but her path to the Olympic medal was not smooth.    1    

Treatment changed everything.    2    She was the third American woman in history to win an Olympic medal in the marathon.

In a world that rewards constant toughness, Seidel’s breakthrough was a case study in the value of patience and self care. Despite the general wisdom that the career of a professional athlete should be unbroken upward to peak performance, Seidel stepped away to recover, and came back stronger.

    3    And it’s one far beyond any athletic field. Americans often reject quitting, and stress “determination”—a quality that a lot of books have urged parents to put on children over the last decade.

Seidel’s coach, Jon Green, says she does better in races when she’s not pushed to extremes in practice. “    4    Absolutely she does,” Mr. Green told me. “But at the end of the day we approach everything with balance.    5    ”

7 . It may be one of Britain’s most successful exports—Miss World. This 53-year-old event took place in China last week and attracted over 120 women worldwide with knockout looks in a mad struggle for the crown.

Traditional values have long kept the Chinese, especially women, from displaying beauty. But Chinese people have now changed their attitude towards beauty contest, although some men will still be shouting that the winner is no more beautiful than his wife or his former girl-friend or even his mother in a sour tone.    1    . The question to be asked is: why isn’t there a Mr. World Beauty Contest?

And a further question to be asked is: does taking part in a beauty contest show a woman’s courage, wisdom and liberation or rather the opposite—a forced choice and a revolting act made under conditions of long-term discrimination?

Organizers of such beauty contests claim that the contestants are judged on qualities other than just their physical appearance. But still no answer is given to why there isn’t a Mr. Beauty or a Mr. World Contest.    2    ? Why is it that only women’s “qualities” need to be recognized but not men’s?

Think about who is always standing beside a fancy car on show?    3    ? And this is how “qualities” are judged: if the girl looks good, there is little reason why the car beside her is not of high quality.

The beauty contests go on year after year, with winners enjoying fame which quickly disappears.    4    , what never changes is the routine practice that in every fancy car show, a girl stands beside a fancy car. What never changes is the need to hold a women’s conference every year to appeal for the promotion of respect for and improvement of women.    5    . So let’s put more time and resources into trying to change all this rather than holding beauty contests.

8 . When he did it, all 16 hours, 46 minutes and nine seconds of physical and psychological hell, his father told him: “You woke up this morning as a boy with Down syndrome.     1    ”

Chris Nikic. He’s 21.

He made the unrealistic his reality.     2     Last fall, he became the first person with Down syndrome to complete an Ironman triathlon — a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run.

Chris Nikic is not just an Ironman — he’s a superhero. “Since the race, we have received thousands and thousands of messages from people around the world who are inspired by his journey.     3     They have kids with special needs or Down syndrome. And so it’s touched Chris and touched us quite a lot.” said Chris’ father, Nik Nikic.

“    4     Because he lets them use him as a mirror to look inwardly and say, ‘Look, if he can do so much with so little, what can I do with what I’ve got?’ It’s not about him — it’s about how he makes other people feel about themselves,” Nik Nikic said.

Chris Nikic’s story spread among the staff at Special Olympic Missouri. As explained by Brian Neuner, chief development and marketing officer, “    5     And so, this was just an amazing example of where his ability was realized, even though he has a disability. We really focus on programs that are designed for helping people move forward and advance. Progress can be measured in so many different ways. Obviously, an Ironman, that’s an extreme achievement.”

9 . Future football stars

Football academies were set up by leading football clubs so their coaches could run trials to discover and train talented boys from as young as eight as potential players for their first team.

This means that in Britain there are at least 9,000 boys at any one time attending academies after school who think they are going to be a famous footballer.     1     One eight-year-old was selected for Chelsea Academy and he went from being top of his class at school to being the boy who was messing around at the back. His mother asked him why he wasn’t trying hard at school any more. His reply was that he was going to be a footballer and be rich, so he didn’t need to. In the end, he only lasted a year in the academy.     2     And he wasn’t so discouraged that he never played football again.

    3     Any sport where only a few can get to the top has many talented failures. These people are very good and do their best but finally it will not pay off because they are just not outstanding enough. In football, this effect is big because the number of players chosen by academies is so huge.     4    

This doesn’t put off all the boys who are spotted by the big football clubs and are desperate to join the academies.     5     They get to play as much football as possible. The skills become part of them, as they are with professional players, so they are automatic and the boys don’t have to think about them when they’re on the football field.

10 . The Olympic spirit is about sportsmanship, personal sacrifice, and a strong will to reach your goals.     1     Instead, it’s a source of motivation to keep going and try to improve every day.

The importance of the Olympic spirit goes far beyond the sports events. And it’s not just for professional athletes, either.     2     Its goal is to encourage everyone, as people, and as citizens, to incorporate (使并入) these values into their lives.

It’s not easy to describe the Olympic spirit in words. Yet everyone who meets it probably knows what it means. One central aspect is having the knowledge that the greatest reward doesn’t lie in getting to a particular goal or victory.     3    

Of course, we’re not trying to suggest that victory means nothing to an athlete or that goals aren’t important. When we speak of personal or professional dreams or goals, we’re aware that reaching the objective is always one’s greatest wish.

Nevertheless, we shouldn’t forget that victory is the result of a long process. It’s only possible through the effort that leads up to it.     4     Everyone who manages to gain victory has to travel a long way to get there. And it must necessarily include some failures and disappointments, but must never end with the person giving up.

Let’s take a track and field race as an example-just to keep going along the line of this sports thread.     5     But all of the competitors are going to give the best of themselves throughout the competition. And you can expect they’ll continue to do so just to improve themselves even after the race.