Vocabulary: Against all odds

 Vinsight Verbs + prepositions: success

1Choose the correct prepositions. 

• 1Brazilian footballer Pelé competed inofon the World Cup in 1958 and succeeded ofinat scoring six goals for Brazil. He was only seventeen!

• 2Fourteen-year-old Nadia Comăneci always dreamed atfromof being a gymnast and prepared afteroffor the Olympic Games in Montreal in 1976 by training hard every day. She won three gold medals and scored ten out of ten!

• 3In 1985, seventeen-year-old German tennis player Boris Becker fought offoron every point and became the Wimbledon champion. All his fans praised him foroverof winning.

• 4In May 2010, everybody in Australia congratulated sixteen-year-old Jessica Watson inaton becoming the youngest person to sail round the world by herself.

• 5Tanni Grey-Thompson won her first medal at the Paralympic Games in Seoul in 1988, when she was nineteen. In her career as a wheelchair racer, she won sixteen medals in Paralympics. Nowadays, she is a politician who campaigns foroverof disabled athletes in sport.

Vinsight Suffixes: -ant, -ent, -ance, -ence

2Match the words in the box to definitions. There are two words that you do not need. 

MOVE
• patience
• distant
• confidence
• violent
• brilliance
• different
• important
• independence
• intelligence

• a  - freedom from political control by other countries

• b  - far away

• c  - a belief in your ability to do things and be successful

• d  - not the same

• e  - the ability to wait for a long time or to accept annoying behaviour without getting angry

• f  - great talent

• g  - actions that are intended to hurt somebody physically

VSport: places

3Match the words in the left column to the words in the right column to make eight places where people do sport. Then complete the sports events programme. 

boxing

football

running

swimming

ice

tennis

golf

climbing

• wall
• pool
• rink
• court
• ring
• course
• pitch
• track

DATE	EVENT	LOCATION
13 May
9:00 – 11:00		1, Aston Stadium
		2, JCY Sports Centre
12:30 – 13:30		3, Riverdell School
		4, JCY Sports Centre
14 May
09:30 − 12:00		5, Aston Stadium
		6, Cedar Park
16:00 − 18:00		7, Aston Stadium
		8, JCY Sports Centre

VSport: places

4Complete the biography with the correct words. Use one word in each space. There are two words you need to use twice. 

MOVE
• confidence
• of
• pitch
• courts
• track
• for
• in
• important

Billie Jean King

When she was a teenager, the young American tennis player Billie Jean King dreamed 

¹

 

winning tournaments on tennis 

²

 

all over the world. In 1966, when she was twenty-two, she competed 

³

 

her first Wimbledon singles tennis final and succeeded 

⁴

 

achieving her dream. She became Wimbledon champion. This victory was very 

⁵

 

to her sports career. It gave her the 

⁶

 

to go and win twelve more Grand Slam tennis singles championships.

 

Later in her career, Billie Jean began to campaign ⁷ equality between men and women in sport. In the 1970s, male sports stars earned a lot more than women, and not only in tennis. On the running ⁸ and on the football

 

⁹,

 

women got a lot less money. Billie Jean King started the Women's Tennis Association and fought 

¹⁰

 

equal pay for women.

5  CHALLENGE! What sport are you good at? What qualities make you successful in that discipline? Speak for no longer than one minute.  Select Record Audio to record yourself.  If you want to add a note to your teacher, write it in the Comments box.  Select Submit to dropbox to send the recording to your teacher.