晨讀英語美文100篇六級(jí)Olympic Games

[ti:] [ar:] [al:] [by:] [00:03.09]Passage 36. Olympic Games [00:08.78]In ancient Greece athletic festivals were very important [00:12.72]and had strong religious associations. [00:15.35]The Olympian athletic festival held every four years in honor of Zeus, [00:20.71]king of the Olympian Gods, eventually lost its local character, [00:24.75]became first a national event and then, [00:27.71]after the rules against foreign competitors had been abolished, international. [00:32.96]No one knows exactly how far back the Olympic Games go, [00:37.33]but some official records date from 776B.C. [00:43.03]The games took place in August on the plain by Mount Olympus. [00:47.84]Many thousands of spectators gathered from all parts of Greece, [00:52.22]but no married woman was admitted even as a spectator. [00:56.04]Slaves, women and dishonored persons were not allowed to compete. [01:00.31]The exact sequence of events is uncertain, [01:04.25]but events included boy’s gymnastics, boxing, wrestling, horse racing and field events, [01:10.82]though there were fewer sports involved than in the modern Olympic Games. [01:15.41]On the last day of the Games, [01:18.48]all the winners were honored by having a ring of holy olive leaves placed on their heads. [01:23.51]So great was the honor that the winner of the foot race [01:27.34]gave his name to the year of his victory. [01:30.94]Although Olympic winners received no prize money, [01:34.56]they were, in fact, richly rewarded by their state authorities. [01:39.71]How their results compared with modern standards, [01:42.99]we unfortunately have no means of telling. [01:46.05]After an uninterrupted history of almost 1,200 years, [01:51.08]the Games were suspended by the Romans in 394 A.D. [01:56.99]They continued for such a long time [02:00.27]because people believed in the philosophy behind the Olympics: [02:03.99]the idea that a healthy body produced a healthy mind, [02:07.71]and that the spirit of competition in sports and games was preferable to the competition that caused wars. [02:14.39]It was over 1,500 years before another such international athletic gathering took place in Athens in 1896. [02:25.10]Nowadays,the Games are held in different countries in turn. [02:28.94]The host country provides vast facilities, [02:32.55]including a stadium, swimming pools and living accommodation, [02:36.38]but competing countries pay their own athletes’ expenses.

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