The Olympic Games

1. Study the text. Find out what countries hosted the Olympic Games.

The Summer Olympic Games or the Games of the Olympiad are an international multi-sport event, occurring every four years, organized by the International Olympic Committee. Medals are awarded in each event, with gold medals for first place, silver for second and bronze for third, a tradition that started in 1904.

The Olympics have increased from a 42-event competition with fewer than 250 male athletes to a 300-event sporting celebration with over 10,000 competitors from 205 nations.

The United States has hosted four Summer Olympics Games, more than any other nation. The United Kingdom will have hosted three Summer Olympics Games when they return to the British capital in 2012, all of them have been (and will be) in London, making it the first city to hold the Summer Olympic Games three times. Australia, France, Germany and Greece have all hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice. Other countries that have hosted the summer Olympics are Belgium, Canada, Finland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, the Soviet Union and Sweden. China hosted the Summer Olympics for the first time in Beijing in 2008 and the UK hosted the Summer Olympics for the third time in London in 2012. In the 2016 Summer Olympics, Rio de Janeiro will host the first Summer Games in South America.

The Winter Olympics were created to feature snow and ice sports that were logistically impossible to hold during the Summer Games. Figure skating (in 1908 and 1920) and ice hockey (in 1920) were featured as Olympic events at the Summer Olympics. The IOC desired to expand this list of sports to encompass other winter activities. At the 1921 Olympic Congress it was decided to hold a winter version of the Olympic Games. A winter sports week (it was actually 11 days) was held in 1924 in Chamonix, France; this event became the first Winter Olympic Games. The IOC mandated that the Winter Games be celebrated every four years on the same year as their summer counterpart. This tradition was upheld until the 1992 Games in Albertville, France; after that, beginning with the 1994 Games, the Winter Olympics were held on the third year of each Olympiad.Recent Winter Olympic Games were held in Sochi (Russia) in 2014.

Paralympics. In 1948, Sir Ludwig Guttmann, determined to promote the rehabilitation of soldiers after World War II, organized a multi-sport event between several hospitals to coincide with the 1948 London Olympics. Guttmann's event, known then as the Stoke Mandeville Games, became an annual sports festival. Over the next twelve years, Guttmann and others continued their efforts to use sports as an avenue to healing. For the 1960 Olympic Games, in Rome, Guttmann brought 400 athletes to compete in the "Parallel Olympics", which became known as the first Paralympics. Since then, the Paralympics have been held in every Olympic year.

In 2001 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) signed an agreement which guaranteed that host cities would be contracted to manage both the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The agreement came into effect at the Summer Games in Beijing 2008, and the Winter Games in Vancouver 2010. Chairman of the London organising committee, Lord Coe, said about the 2012 Summer Paralympics and Olympics in London, England that, “We want to change public attitudes towards disability, celebrate the excellence of Paralympic sport and to enshrine from the very outset that the two Games are an integrated whole”.

2. Discuss in groups how Winter Olympics differ from Summer Olympics, how do they refer to Paralympics?

3. Choose the correct answer among suggested.

1. Women were a) abolished b) stopped c) forbidden to take part in the ancient Olympic Games or even to be spectators.

2. The first modern Olympic Games were a) participated b) played c) held in Athens in 1896.

3. The International Olympic Committee is the supreme a) team b) conglomerate c) organization of the Olympic movement.

4. The winner of an event receives a gold medal, the competitor in second place receives silver and the competitor in third position is a) awarded b) prized c) commissioned a bronze medal.

5. It is not a country that a) plays c) hosts c) trades an Olympic Games, but a city that is given the honour.

6. The Olympic rings represent the union of the five a) provinces b) continents c) countries.

7. The Olympic flame had been part of the ancient games and first a) took place b) created c) appeared in the modern games in 1928.

8. All competitors receive a diploma and a commemorative medal marking their a) participation b) performance c) play in the Olympic Games.

9. Originally a strict code regarding amateur a) status b) division c) level restricted the number of participants who were eligible.

10. The first Olympic Games to be televised live were the 1936 games in Berlin. Television is now a vital a) source b) fountain c) route of income for the Olympic Committee.

11. Though women had competed before, it was not until the games of 1912 that women were formally a) incarcerated b) admitted c) established.

12. Although the Olympic Games is meant to bring together the athletes of the world in peaceful competition, it has been a) involved b) effected c) blessed by political tensions.

4. Write the letter of the word that best matches the meaning.

_______1) athletes serve, jump and spike the ball	A) archery
_______2) a racquet sport where athletes hit a ball back and forth over a dividing net	B) badminton
_______3) athletes compete by running and jumping over several frames	C) baseball
_______4) athletes use a racquet to hit a feathered ball(shuttlecock)	D) basketball
_______5) a water sport where athletes compete by swimming fast	E) boxing
_______6) athletes compete by shooting an arrow with a bow	F) cycling
_______7) athletes do several acrobatic stunts and are judge by a panel of judges	G) diving
_______8) athletes compete by riding bicycles	H) equestrian
_______9) athletes dribble and kick the ball	I) fencing
_______10) athletes use a blunt rapier to hit an opponent	J) football
_______11) a field sport where athletes throw a heavy metal ball	K) gymnastics
_______12) athletes compete by riding a horse over a barrier	L) hurdles
_______13) a pitcher throws the ball and a batter hits the ball with a bat	M) javelin
_______14) athletes wear special gloves and punch each other	N) shot-put
_______15) a beautiful sport where athletes plunge into water in style	O) swimming
_______16) a field sport where athletes throw a long spear	P) tennis
_______17) sport where athletes dunk the ball into a hanging basket-like ring	Q) volleyball

1. Study the text. Find the most popular Olympic Symbols.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16