The Paralympic Games Reading: The Paralympics a) Before you read, make sure you understand what the words below mean: 1. to take place to make a series of short sounds 2. athlete to try to do something better than someone else 3. to compete system of writing for people with difficulty seeing 4. Braille writing having a healthy body 5. to rattle 1 to happen, to go on 6. veteran someone doing sports 7. able-bodied 6 someone who has fought in a war b) Read the article about the Paralympic Games. c) While you read, highlight or underline the information in the given colours. • yellow: What happens at the Paralympic Games? • green: When do the Paralympic Games take place? • blue: Where do they take place? • pink: Who takes part in the Paralympic Games? 5fd8ff 7 Both the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics take place every four years, but not in the same years together. Every second year either the Summer or the Winter Olympics take place. The Olympic Games are a major international sports event with athletes from around the world. After every Olympic Games, the Paralympic Games take place in the same city as the Olympics. The Paralympics are an international sports event for athletes with physical disabilities. More than 170 nations have athletes competing in the Paralympic Games. There are 24 sports in the Paralympics, including many of the standard Olympic ones like cycling, swimming, and judo. But there are also many sports that you can only find in the Paralympics, such as wheelchair basketball, wheelchair tennis and sitting volleyball. Paralympic medals are usually created with the special needs of some of the athletes in mind. Each one has Braille writing on it for athletes with difficulty seeing. And in each one there are little steel balls that rattle. The noise is different, depending on whether the medal is gold, silver or bronze. The Paralympics were first organised in 1948. Then it was just a small event for British World War II veterans. Today it is one of the largest international sport events. Paralympians, the athletes who compete at the Paralympics, work for equal treatment with able-bodied Olympic athletes. 5 10 15 124 15 Unit Being different one hundred and twenty-four Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Ei entum des Verlags öbv
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