选修9 Unit 1 Breaking records-Reading
"THE ROAD IS ALWAYS AHEAD OF YOU"
Ashrita Furman is a sportsman who likes the challenge of breaking Guinness records. Over the last 25 years, he hasbroken approximately 93 Guinness records. More than twenty of these he still holds, including the record for having the most records. But these records are not made in any conventional sport like swimming or soccer. Rather Ashrita attempts to break records in very imaginative events and in very interesting places.
Recently, Ashrita achieved his dream of breaking a record in all seven continents, including hula hooping in Australia, pogo stick jumping under water in South America, and performing deep knee bends in a hot air balloon in North America.
While these activities might seem childish and cause laughter rather than respect, in reality they require an enormous amount of strength and fitness as well as determination.
Think about the fine neck adjustments needed to keep a full bottle of milk on your head while you are walking. You can stop to rest or eat but the bottle has to stay on your head.
While Ashrita makes standing on top of a 75 cm Swiss ball look easy, it is not. It takes a lot of concentration and a great sense of balance to stay on it. You have to struggle to stay on top especially when your legs start shaking.
And what about somersaulting along a road for 12 miles? Somersaulting is a tough event as you have to overcome dizziness, extreme tiredness and pain. You are permitted to rest for only five minutes in every hour of rolling but you are allowed to stop briefly to vomit.
Covering a mile in the fastest time while doing gymnastically correct lunges is yet another event in which Ashrita is outstanding. Lunges are extremely hard on your legs. You start by standing and then you step forward with the fight foot while touching the left knee to the ground. Then you stand up again and step forward with the left foot while touching the fight knee to the ground. Imagine doing this for a mile!
Yet this talented sportsman is not a natural athlete. As a child he was very unfit and was not at all interested in sports. However, he was fascinated by the Guinness Book of World Records.
How Ashrita came to be a sportsman is an interesting story. As a teenager, he began searching for a deeper meaning in life. He studied Eastern religions and, aged 16, discovered an Indian meditation teacher called Sri Chinmoy who lived in his neighbourhood in New York City. Since that time in the early 1970s, Ashrita has been one of Sri Chinmoy's students. Sri Chinmoy says that it is just as important for people to develop their bodies as it is to develop their minds, hearts and spiritual selves. He believes that there is no limit to people's physical abilities.
When Ashrita came third in a 24-hour bicycle marathon in New York's Central Park in 1978, he knew that he would one day get into the Guinness Book of World Records. He had been urged by his spiritual leader to enter the marathon even though he had done no training. So, when he won third place, he came to the understanding that his body was just an instrument of the spirit and that he seemed to be able to use his spirit to accomplish anything. From then on, Ashrita refused to accept any physical limitation.
With this new confidence, Asharita broke his first Guinness record with 27,000 jumping jacks in 1979. The motivation to keep trying to break records comes through his devotion to Sri Chinmoy. Every time Ashrita tries to break a record, he reaches a point where he feels he cannot physically do any more. At that moment, he goes deep within himself and connects with his soul and his teacher.
Ashrita always acknowledges his teacher in his record-breaking attempts.In fact, he often wears a T-shirt with Sri Chinmoy's words on the back. The words are:
"There is only one perfect road. It is ahead of you, always ahead of you."
FOCUS ON ...
Lance Armstrong
Date of Birth: 8th September, 1971
Country: USA
Lance Armstrong's Guinness record for the fastest average speed at the Tour de France was set in 1999 with an average speed of 40.27 km/hr. In his teens he was a triathlete but at 16 he began to concentrate on cycling. He was an amateur cyclist before the 1992 Olympic Games but turned professional after he had competed in the Games. In the following few years, he won numerous titles, and by 1996 he had become the world's number one. However, in October 1996, he discovered he had cancer and
had to leave cycling. Successfully fighting his illness, Armstrong officially returned to racing in 1998. In 1999 he won the Tour de France and in 2003 he achieved his goal of winning five Tours de France.
Michellie Jones
Date of Birth: 9th June, 1969
Country: Australia
In 1988 Michellie Jones helped establish the multi-sport event, the triathlon, in Australia. After completing her teaching qualifications in 1990, she concentrated on the triathlon. In 1991, she finished third at the world championships. In 1992 and 1993, she was the International Triathlon Union World Champion. Since then, she has never finished lower than fourth in any of the world championships she has competed in. At the Sydney Olympics in 2000 she won the silver medal in the Women's Triathlon, the first time the event had been included in the Olympic Games. Recently, for the first time in 15 years, Jones was not selected as part of the national team and therefore did not compete in the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
Fu Mingxia
Date of Birth: 16th August, 1978
Country: China
Fu Mingxia first stood on top of the 10-metre diving platform at the age of nine. At 12 years old she won a Guinness Record when she became the youngest female to win the women's world title for platform diving at the World Championships in Australia in 1991. At the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, she took the gold medal in the women's 10-metre platform, becoming the youngest Olympic diving champion of all time. This was followed by great success at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games where she won gold for both the 10-metre platform and the three-metre springboard. This made her the first woman in Olympic diving history to win three gold medals. She retired from diving after Atlanta and went to study economics at university. While there she decided to make a comeback and went on to compete at the Sydney Olympic Games, where she won her fourth Olympic gold, again making Olympic history.
Martin Strel
Date of Birth: 1st October, 1954
Country: Slovenia
Strel was trained as a guitarist before he became a professional marathon swimmer in 1978. He has a passion for swimming the world's great rivers. In 2000, he was the first person ever to swim the entire length of the Danube River in Europe - a distance of 3,004 kilometres in 58 days. For this, he attained his first entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. Then in 2001 he broke the Guinness record for non-stop swimming - 504.5 kilometres in the Danube River in 84 hours and 10 minutes. Martin won his third entry in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2002 when he beat his own record for long distance swimming by swimming the length of the Mississippi River in North America in 68 days, a total of 3,797 kilometres. Then in 2003 he became the first man to have swum the whole 1,929 kilometres of the difficult Parana River in South America.In 2004, Strel again broke his own Guinness record by swimming the length of the dangerous Changjiang River (4,600 km), the third longest fiver in the world.