VOA慢速英语2012 IN THE NEWS - London Olympics Begins; Punishment for Penn State

 

IN THE NEWS - London Olympics Begins; Punishment for Penn State

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.

Seventeen thousand athletes and officials from more than two hundred countries will take part in the London Olympics.

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Hours before the opening ceremony Friday night, London's Big Ben rang for three minutes to welcome the Games. Also, President Obama’s wife Michelle visited with the United States Olympic team. She is leading the American delegation¹ at the twenty twelve Games.

MICHELLE OBAMA: "Every few years these games bring pride, excitement and wonder to millions of people around the world, and that must mean so much to all of you, being part of giving so many people that much hope."

The Republican Party’s presidential candidate, Mitt² Romney, is also in London.

About thirty-six thousand British troops, police and private security guards will protect the Olympic sites and the streets of London and other cities. Officials had to deploy³ extra troops after the private security company G4S failed to keep its promise to provide ten thousand workers.

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the attack by Palestinian gunmen at the Munich Games. Eleven Israelis were killed. The International Olympic Committee president decided⁴ against a moment of silence at the opening ceremony in London. The victims will be remembered at a separate event.

Athletes at the London Games will compete in twenty-six sports.

Most eyes will be on American Michael Phelps when the first gold medals in swimming are awarded Saturday. He plans to swim in seven events in London. If he wins medals in three of them, he will break the all-time record for total Olympic medals. Former Soviet⁵ gymnast Larisa Latynina holds the record of eighteen.

A newcomer to the American swimming team, Missy Franklin, is also getting a lot of attention. She qualified⁶ for four individual events at only the age of seventeen.

The closing ceremony for the London Games is August twelfth.

The start of the Olympics is a high point for the sports world. But the week began on a low point for American college football in a case we first reported on last November.

On Monday the governing group for college sports punished Penn State University for its failure to stop the sexual abuse of young boys by one of its coaches. The National Collegiate Athletic⁷ Association fined the university sixty million dollars. The NCAA also cancelled all Penn State football victories for the past fourteen seasons. It banned the team from competing in postseason bowl games for the next four years. And it reduced the number of scholarships that the university can offer.

Last month, a jury found former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky guilty of abusing ten young boys, sometimes on the Pennsylvania campus. The sixty-eight-year-old Sandusky faces sentencing in September. He could spend the rest of his life in prison.

The NCAA sanctions mean former head coach Joe Paterno falls from first to fifth on the list of coaches with the most wins in major-college football. He lost his job last year over the Sandusky case and died in January at the age of eighty-five.

And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. For all the news from the London Olympics, go to www.voanews.cn. I'm Steve Ember.

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Contributing: Carla Babb

1 delegation   

n.代表团；派遣

参考例句：

• The statement of our delegation was singularly appropriate to the occasion.我们代表团的声明非常适合时宜。
• We shall inform you of the date of the delegation's arrival.我们将把代表团到达的日期通知你。

2 mitt   

n.棒球手套，拳击手套，无指手套；vt.铐住，握手

参考例句：

• I gave him a baseball mitt for his birthday.为祝贺他的生日，我送给他一只棒球手套。
• Tom squeezed a mitt and a glove into the bag.汤姆把棒球手套和手套都塞进袋子里。

3 deploy   

v.（军）散开成战斗队形，布置，展开

参考例句：

• The infantry began to deploy at dawn.步兵黎明时开始进入战斗位置。
• The president said he had no intention of deploying ground troops.总统称并不打算部署地面部队。

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

6 qualified   

adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的

参考例句：

• He is qualified as a complete man of letters.他有资格当真正的文学家。
• We must note that we still lack qualified specialists.我们必须看到我们还缺乏有资质的专家。

7 athletic   

adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的

参考例句：

• This area has been marked off for athletic practice.这块地方被划出来供体育训练之用。
• He is an athletic star.他是一个运动明星。