Who do you think came up with the idea for the Paralympics (残奥会)? The man who organized the sporting events which became the Paralympics Games_______was a doctor, Ludwig Guttmann.

In his teens, Ludwig was always interested in medicine and worked as a _______in a hospital. Then he_______ from medical school and became a doctor when he was 25 years old.

Guttmann _______ a successful career for the next few years._______ , because Guttmann and his family were Jews, in Germany was becoming very _______ for them. In 1938 Guttmann _______ to the UK with his family where he continued his research _______ the best way to treat patients.

The Second World War was going on and there were a lot of soldiers_______in the fighting. Often they   __________ the use of their legs and needed __________ and help. The disabled soldiers were often __________ and angry for they couldn’t really live a normal, useful life. Guttmann used his new __________ to look after their injuries but he also tried to give them emotional strength.

Guttmann __________ taking part in sport could help a person’s body as well as their mind and began to use __________ as a treatment to help his patients. He wanted to give them back their self-respect and dignity and __________ them to take part in sports.

In 1948 the hospital held a sporting event called “The International Wheelchair Games”. By 1952 the event began to __________bigger with disabled athletes from other countries attending. By 1960 the games were called the International Stroke Mandeville Games and they were held in Rome alongside the __________ Summer Olympics. By 1968 there were 750 athletes from 29 different countries. Guttmann himself died in 1980, even__________ the games were called “Paralympics”, but there is no __________ that he is the founder and father of the Paralympics Games. It’s thanks to his hard work that we are all able to enjoy the Paralympics.

In late 2021, I began to have a little bit of a midlife crisis. When my father was 48 years old, he had a heart attack that nearly ended his life. As I _________ my mid-forties, I knew that I needed to make a change in my life. I wanted to do something _________ to prove to myself and everyone else around me that I wasn’t going to have the same fate.

As I was trying to determine what kind of _________ that I wanted to set, I found a _________ called The Rut. The Rut is a series of races that are _________ in Big Sky, Montana every September. There’s multiple distances, but the 28 Kilometer _________ is the most popular, as well as the most _________ of the entire series. This race is regularly listed in the top ten most difficult races in the world. It involves almost 8,000 feet of elevation (海拔)_________ . This was the type of race I was _________ .

I also did a detailed training __________ . Even if I was traveling for business, I would stick to it and never __________ a workout (训练). And then came race day.

That day, Big Sky Montana, was unseasonably __________ , almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The race is going almost entirely above tree line, which means that you just are __________ to the elements (恶劣天气) nearly the entire time. Many people __________ out of the race halfway. But I finished it. When I reached the finish line, I was greeted by my wife and children, also friends that had traveled with us to Big Sky that day. This was the biggest challenge I had made for myself, but I __________ it.

Anna Kiesenhofer became the first Austrian Olympic gold medalist in Tokyo 2020. She wasn’t considered a threat at all. “Finishing in the Top 25 would have been a _________ result.” She said later.

No one_________ she would win. For the whole 85 miles, she competed against a group of _________ competitors — cycling superstars, world champions... until some seemed not to know   she remained up the road, alone.

Confused? At least Van Vleuten was. When she crossed the finish line, smiling, arms _________, under the impression that she’d won gold, she didn’t _________ the race had been won by Anna, a math Ph.D.

Anna’s win was actually more_________. She was the only cyclist from her country, leaving her no teammates she could _________ in the race. At the beginning, there was little hope she might win, but it was only going solo for the last 40 kilometers when she_________ “riding for gold”. As it turned out, competing without much weight of_________ helped Anna win. She entered the race without a professional team and__________ with a gold medal. She wrote a (an) __________ of her own into the history of the Olympics.

Outside of cycling, Anna has earned a Ph.D in applied mathematics. As a successful

__________, she says she has been used to solving problems on her own. “I like to be __________, and that’s the way I approach cycling.” Asked what words she would share to an aspiring young rider, she responded, “I’m not __________ to accept what makes me unique. I dare to be different. This means I’m also__________, and that’s exactly what happened in the race.”