人物点滴—史东鹏:北京奥运会上能超过刘翔吗

 The runner-up to Liu Xiang at the East Asian Games said he could have beaten the Olympic champion if he hadn't made a mistake.

"I started too fast and hit the first hurdle¹. If I didn't make that mistake I could have been first," said the 21-year-old, who clocked 13.36 seconds for the 110m hurdles² silver after a false start.

Liu Xiang smoothly³ cleared all the hurdles to win the gold in 13.21 seconds, well off his world record of 12.91. "Of course I need to improve my run. But today's performance is okay," said Shi.

The East Asian Games was the third time Shi challenged Liu in two months. In the Asian championships in September, Liu won the gold in 13.30 seconds, followed by Shi in 13.44. In last month's Chinese National Games in Nanjing, Liu triumphed in 13.10 and Shi finished second in 13.44.  

The 22-year-old Liu became one of China's biggest celebrities⁴ after winning China's first ever Olympic men's athletics⁵ gold and leveled the world record in the Athens Olympics last year. His top time this year is 13.05 seconds, which is 0.08 seconds behind this season's best 12.97 set by Frenchman Ladji Doucoure, who beat Liu into second in the world championships.

runner-up  n. 亚军                   　　　　　hurdle  n. 栏
championship  n. 锦标赛

1 hurdle   

n.跳栏，栏架；障碍，困难；vi.进行跨栏赛

参考例句：

• The weather will be the biggest hurdle so I have to be ready.天气将会是最大的障碍，所以我必须要作好准备。
• She clocked 11.6 seconds for the 80 metre hurdle.八十米跳栏赛跑她跑了十一秒六。

2 hurdles   

n.障碍( hurdle的名词复数 )；跳栏；（供人或马跳跃的）栏架；跨栏赛

参考例句：

• In starting a new company, many hurdles must be crossed. 刚开办一个公司时，必须克服许多障碍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• There are several hurdles to be got over in this project. 在这项工程中有一些困难要克服。 来自辞典例句

3 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

4 celebrities   

n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉

参考例句：

• He only invited A-list celebrities to his parties. 他只邀请头等名流参加他的聚会。
• a TV chat show full of B-list celebrities 由众多二流人物参加的电视访谈节目

5 athletics   

n.运动，体育，田径运动

参考例句：

• When I was at school I was always hopeless at athletics.我上学的时候体育十分糟糕。
• Our team tied with theirs in athletics.在田径比赛中，我们队与他们队旗鼓相当。