At the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, Halfway in the women’s slalom(障碍滑雪)race, 18-year-old Mikaela Shiffrin took a commanding lead over the greatest women’s slalom skiers in the world. On her final run, she burst from the start house at a breakneck speed, snaking around the poles in crazy rhythm.
Skiing has always been a significant part of Mikaela’s life. Her mom raced and coached skiing and her dad ski raced all through college. The Shiffrins taught Mikaela and her brother, Taylor, to ski at a very young age. At the age of two and a half, Mikaela made her first ski run on plastic skis. From ages 8 to 11, she worked hard, practicing hundreds of training runs on small hills repeatedly to develop the correct techniques of slalom skiing.
When Mikaela was 11, she attended the Burke Mountain Academy, a Vermont boarding school for skiers. She took classes, studied, and practiced her skiing crazily. According to Kirk Dwyer, Burke Mountain Academy headmaster, “It was the degree of Mikaela’s effort to be the best that distinguished her from others. Her commitment to conditioning, having proper sleep, eating correctly, doing the drills, and watching video was unusual for an 11 to 13-year-old. Mikaela practiced more than anyone and believed in herself then and now.”
By the time she was 17, she had already won her first World Cup race.
Working hard is a full-time job for Mikaela. Even her off-season is work time. In the summer, when Mikaela is off the ski slopes and in the gym, her daily training consists of six to seven hours of weight lifting, swimming, and biking to improve her core strength and flexibility. She does all of this so that she can dash down slopes at speeds topping 50 miles per hour while cutting back and forth around gates with astonishing precision.
“If you have passion for your targets, whatever they are,” she says, “the sky is the limit. Give it your all!”
【小题1】What can we learn from paragraph 2?| A．Mikaela came from a skiing family. |
| B．Mikaela’s mother taught her to ski first. |
| C．Mikaela trained harder than her brother. |
| D．Mikaela’s father coached skiing in colleges. |
| A．To stress Mikaela was a crazy teen. |
| B．To show Mikaela’s distinct personality. |
| C．To praise the good students in his school. |
| D．To highlight Mikaela’s great devotion to training. |
| A．Competent and wise. | B．Creative and determined. |
| C．Aggressive and brave. | D．Committed and self-disciplined. |
| A．Practice makes perfect. |
| B．Not to advance is to go back. |
| C．He who laughs last laughs best. |
| D．Actions speak louder than words. |
