晨读英语美文100篇 Passage 36. Olympic Games
 音频下载[点击右键另存为][00:01.09]Passage 36. Olympic Games[00:06.78]In ancient Greece athletic festivals were very important [00:10.72]and had strong religious associations. [00:13.35]The Olympian athletic festival held every four years in honor of Zeus, [00:18.71]king of the Olympian Gods, eventually lost its local character, [00:22.75]became first a national event and then, [00:25.71]after the rules against foreign competitors had been abolished, international. [00:30.96]No one knows exactly how far back the Olympic Games go, [00:35.33]but some official records date from 776B.C. [00:41.03]The games took place in August on the plain by Mount Olympus. [00:45.84]Many thousands of spectators gathered from all parts of Greece, [00:50.22]but no married woman was admitted even as a spectator. [00:54.04]Slaves, women and dishonored persons were not allowed to compete. [00:58.31]The exact sequence of events is uncertain, [01:02.25]but events included boy’s gymnastics, boxing, wrestling, horse racing and field events, [01:08.82]though there were fewer sports involved than in the modern Olympic Games. [01:13.41]On the last day of the Games, [01:16.48]all the winners were honored by having a ring of holy olive leaves placed on their heads. [01:21.51]So great was the honor that the winner of the foot race [01:25.34]gave his name to the year of his victory. [01:28.94]Although Olympic winners received no prize money, [01:32.56]they were, in fact, richly rewarded by their state authorities. [01:37.71]How their results compared with modern standards, [01:40.99]we unfortunately have no means of telling. [01:44.05]After an uninterrupted history of almost 1,200 years, [01:49.08]the Games were suspended by the Romans in 394 A.D. [01:54.99]They continued for such a long time [01:58.27]because people believed in the philosophy behind the Olympics: [02:01.99]the idea that a healthy body produced a healthy mind, [02:05.71]and that the spirit of competition in sports and games was preferable to the competition that caused wars. [02:12.39]It was over 1,500 years before another such international athletic gathering took place in Athens in 1896. [02:23.10]Nowadays,the Games are held in different countries in turn. [02:26.94]The host country provides vast facilities, [02:30.55]including a stadium, swimming pools and living accommodation, [02:34.38]but competing countries pay their own athletes’ expenses. |
