CHAPTER 2 - Unusual Olympic Sports

Real Life Skill - Understanding Punctuation

A. Find one example of each punctuation mark below in the passage. Then write the letter of each description next to the correct punctuation mark.

B. Now add punctuation marks to these sentences. Compare your answers with a partner's.

1. After the host city was selected work began on the new sports center
   Answer

   After the host city was selected, work began on the new sports center.

2. My father said I am not angry with you
   Answer

   My father said, “ I am not angry with you.”

3. I have applied for a job at three companies Acer Motorola and Westinghouse
   Answer

   I have applied for a job at three companies: Acer, Motorola, and Westinghouse.

4. She refused to address the problem she said she didn't have the time
   Answer

   She refused to address the problem; she said she didn’t have the time.

5. Call the police This is an emergency
   Answer

   Call the police! This is an emergency!

6. She kept asking me Are you angry
   Answer

   She kept asking me, “Are you angry?”

7. I like soccer and basketball but I really don't like baseball
   Answer

   I like soccer and basketball, but I really don’t like baseball.

8. For dinner last night we had take-out from a Vietnamese restaurant
   Answer

   For dinner last night, we had take-out from a Vietnamese restaurant.

www.olympiccareers.com/athletes

Unusual Olympic Sports

For many people, the Olympic Games consist of popular sports like swimming, running, or ice skating. Here are three unusual Olympic events, and three athletes who fell in love with them.

Curling

Curling is a sport that is played on ice. Two teams of four players each slide eight stones along the ice to a colored circle (called the house). The object of the game is to place a stone closest to the center of the house.

"I started curling very young," Canadian Olympic curler Sammy McCann told us. "My father managed a hotel with an ice rink. As soon as the people left the ice, my friends and I would get right on and start curling."

Trampoline

Kids have been jumping on trampolines for almost a hundred years, but it was only at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney that trampoline became an official Olympic sport. In Olympic competitions, each trampoline gymnast is judged on ten different skills. A gymnast can score well by showing that they can control their bodies while jumping high and twisting and flipping smoothly in the air.

"I love the sport. I've been doing it since I was five years old," said Jennifer Parilla, American trampoline gymnast. After Jennifer competed in the 2000 Olympics (as the only American trampoline gymnast), she got a tattoo of a butterfly to remind her of her "new beginnings" as an Olympian.

Skeleton

The sport of skeleton racing first became an Olympic sport in 1928. Skeleton racers slide down an icy course at very high speed on a simple sled. The sled is called a skeleton because early sleds looked like human skeletons.

"I didn't start skeleton until I was 30," said American skeleton racer Zach Gale. "While driving, my girlfriend and I took a wrong turn at Lake Placid, New York; that's where the 1980 Winter Olympics took place. They were offering skeleton classes that afternoon. My girlfriend said, 'Why don't we give it a try?' It was fun! I fell in love with it."