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Review Reading 4: Selecting the Olympic Sports
Fluency Practice
し
Time yourself as you read through the passage. Write your time in the space at the bottom of
the page. Then answer the questions on the next page.
Selecting the Olympig Spos
During each Summer Olympic Games, 28 different
sports are played. The kinds of sports played at the
Olympics don't change very often, and the process
for changing them is long and difficult. So it came as
a big surprise in 2005 when the International Olympic
Committee (IOC) announced that it wanted to add
new sports to the Summer Olympic Games. At that
time, the list of sports hadn't changed in 70 years.
5
At a meeting in Singapore in 2005, the lOC voted on each of the 28 events from the 2004
10 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. They wanted to choose which sports would be played at the
2016 games. There are many reasons why some sports make the list while others don't, but it's
important that these sports are popular around the world, and played in many different countries.
The committee decided that baseball and softball would be
replaced. Their new options included roller skating, rugby, golf,
squash, and karate. To be included in the Olympics, a sport must
receive votes from at least two-thirds of the committee. The IOC
had to meet more than once to come to a conclusion. Finally, in
2009, the results were announced: rugby and golf were the newest
Olympic sports.
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Both rugby and golf have
been Olympic sports
before. Golf was part of
the 1904 games over a century ago, and rugby was last
played in the 1924 games. Now, both sports will rejoin
25 the Olympics for the 2016 Summer Gamesin Rio de
|20
Janeiro, Brazil.
Athletes from both sports are excited. New Zealand
rugby star Jonah Lomu said, "(t's) just fantastic for
the game." Golf superstar Jack Nicklaus feels just as
strongly. He says that "now people of all walks of life1 will be inspired to play the game of golf, and
play for sports' highest recognition. For all sports, that has always been a gold medal."
1 People from all walks of life are people from different backgrounds, cultures, or positions in society.
335 words
Time taken
