One August afternoon. Richard Allen dropped off his last passenger, Mrs. Carey. Lifting two grocery bags, he followed her across the yard and stood on the step of her house. Glancing up, he saw a large wasp(黄蜂) nest under the roof. Allen had heard that wasps can become more likely to sting in summer. He mentioned this to Mrs. Carey, who had opened the door.

“Oh, they don’t bother me,” she said lightly, “I go in and out all the time.”

Anxiously, Allen looked at the nest again-to see the wasps flying straight at him. “Hurry!” he shouted to Mrs. Carey. “Get in!”

She stepped quickly inside, Allen ran for his mini-bus. Too late: they were upon him. Just as he jumped aboard, half a dozen red spots showed on his arm, and he felt more on his back and shoulders.

As he was driving down the road, Allen felt as if something was burning at the back of his neck, and the “fire” was spreading forward toward his face. An immediate anxiety took hold of him. Allen knew that stings could cause some persons to die. But he had been stung the previous summer and the after-effects soon passed. However, what he didn’t know was that the first sting had turned his body into a time bomb waiting for the next to set off an explosion.

Miles from the nearest medical assistance, Allen began to feel his tongue thick and heavy and his heartbeat louder. Most frightening, he felt his breathing more and more difficult. He reached for the radio mike(话筒), trying to call the mini-bus center, but his words were hardly understandable. Signals were also poor that far out. He knew a rescue team was on 24-hour duty at the Amherst Fire Department’s north station. So his best chance was to make a run for it.

Rushing down the mountain, Allen tried not to panic, focusing his mind on each sharp turn. He was almost through the last of them when he felt sure he was going into shock(休克). Just then he reached for the radio mike again.

“Call fire station.” He shouted, concentrating to form the words. “Emergency. Bee sting. Emergency. There in ten minutes.”

“Five-ten,” the center replied.

Hold on, Allen thought: Keep your eyes open. Breathe. Keep awake.

At last he reached the station. Two firemen ran out, Allen felt their hands grasp him before he hit the ground. “You made it,” he thought.

On Aug 7, Xu Shixiao and her partner, Sun Mengya, won gold in the first women’s canoe(划艇) double 500m event at the Tokyo Games. It was also the first Olympic gold medal for China in the event.

Yet Xu’s journey to the Olympics was bumpy—she faced lots of difficulties.

In 2013, the news that women’s canoeing was still not an Olympic event dealt her a heavy blow. At that time, Xu’s coach suggested her either changing to another sport or retiring(退役).

It was impossible for her to change the sport at age 21. Xu gave up her career and found her first job as a saleswoman. The next year, she was promoted as a human resources manager.

When Xu went to work as usual in a company in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, five years ago, she was surprised to get a call from her former coach, asking about her willingness to return to canoeing and compete in the Tokyo Olympic Games. Xu quickly made her decision.

“I quit(辞职) my job, told my family about it and went back to training three days later. There was not much time left for me to prepare for the Olympics,” Xu recalls. “I never thought that one day I could go back to the sport. Now that I have started again, I will do my best.”

To catch the opportunity to go back to canoeing on the international level, Xu started her training—“as cruel as hell”. She began her daily exercises early morning and ended at 10:30 p.m. Every day, she would set several detailed goals for her training. “Only when I reached all my daily goals. I would go ashore,” Xu says.

The more than two months of grueling(艰辛的) training finally paid off. Xu won two gold medals at the 13th National Games in two women’s canoe events, which meant she would be part of the national team to compete in the Tokyo Olympics.

I am Tony, a volunteer stem cell courier. Since March 2019, I have done 99 trips——of those, 56 have been abroad. I have 42 hours to carry stem cells in my little box because I've got two ice packs and that's how long they last. In all, from the time the stem cells are harvested from a donor to the time they can be implanted (移植) in the patient, we've got 72 hours at most. So I am always conscious of time.

Last year, I had a trip where I was caught by a hurricane in America. I picked up the stem cells in Providence, Rhode Island, and was meant to fly to Washington then back to London. But when I arrived at the check -in desk at Providence, the lady on the desk said: "Well, I'm really sorry, but I've got some bad news for you - there are no flights to Washington." So I took my box and put it on the desk and I said: "In this box are some stem cells that are urgently needed for a patient- please, please, you've got to get me back to the United Kingdom." She just dropped everything. She arranged for a fight on a small plane to be held for me, rerouted (改道) me through Newark and got me back to the UK even earlier than originally scheduled.

For this courier job, I' m consciously aware that in that box I've got something that is potentially going to save someone’s life.