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1、DCBACCDDBABAD DBB ACADCA BCB CBD DBCUnless youve been living under a rock, by now you have heard of Lance Armstrong. The unusual thing here is that you may have heard of him, but not always for the same reason. Some know him as a champion cyclist who set the world record by winning the Tour de Franc
2、e six times. Others may know of him through his philanthropic works, namely The Lance Armstrong Foundation and the yellow Livestrong wristbands that you see everywhere these days. Others may know him as a cancer survivor who decided to meet the challenges that cancer threw his way head on and came o
3、ut the winner. Regardless of how you know of him, just knowing of him at all offers your life inspiration when you may need it most.(Millions around the world properly celebrate him and his lofty accomplishment.)Lance Armstrongs Heroism Is a Moral InspirationBy Andrew BernsteinWhen Lance Armstrong r
4、ode through Paris on Sunday, crowning his unprecedented seventh consecutive victory in the grueling Tour de France, he put an exclamation mark on what is more than merely an extraordinary athletic career.By this time, the entire world knows Armstrongs storyhis remarkable recovery from what was feare
5、d to be terminal cancer, his exhausting training program, his legendary endurance, his dauntless determination, his unequalled dominance of cyclings premier event. Millions around the world properly celebrate him and his lofty accomplishments.But what explains the enormous interest in Armstrongs suc
6、cessor that of any other sports hero? Why do sports fans set such a strong personal stake in the victories of their heroes? After all, little of any practical significance depends on such victories; a seventh Armstrong win wont get his fans a raise or help send their children to college. Why do spor
7、ts have such an enormous, enduring appeal in human life?The answer lies in a rarely recognized aspect of sports: their moral significance. What athletic victories provide is a rare and crucial moral value: the sight of human achievement.Athletic competitions are staged with the goal of achieving vic
8、tory. By their very nature, they seek and honor champions, i.e., those select few who, in a given field, outdistance their brothers and sisters. The result of this policy is that sports reward exceptional achievement, not equality; they glorify the elite, not the ordinary; they celebrate towering he
9、roes, not “the little guy.”Sports do not seek to “level the playing field” in an attempt to give a less-talented competitor a better chance of defeating a superior rival. Properly, there are no penalties imposed on a champion for being superior to his foes. Lance Armstrong, for example, is not requi
10、red to heft a twenty pound weight up the steep ascents of the Pyrenees. Michael Jordan was not banned from springing skyward. The PGA does not require Tiger Woods to use an inferior brand of clubs. The only equality permitted is that every competitor gets the same opportunity to showcase his talents
11、 and determination.With artificial handicaps or advantages eliminated, sports provide an undiluted example of the pursuit of excellence. In an era when the anti-hero is dominant in intellectual culture, sports provide the purest arena in which to pursue, observe and appreciate human aspiration, achi
12、evement and greatness. The reality of an athlete striving to hone his skills to the utmostenduring pain, overcoming injury, testing his mettle against the worlds bestprovides a noble vision of mans potential.Those of us who, physically, cannot cycle 2,000 miles or run the 100 meters in 9 seconds can
13、 still aspire to significant achievements. The vision of Armstrongs magnificent abilities and dauntless determination engenders in the best of us the questions: What might I accomplish in my field and in my life if I embodied the same degree of dedication? How high might I go in my own life-promotin
14、g endeavors if I put into them the identical indefatigable qualities of spirit that Armstrong does?The motto of the Modern Olympic Games is: Citius, Altius, FortiusSwifter, Higher, Stronger. Lance Armstrong embodies these principles perfectly. A great athlete like Armstrong is inspiring, because he
15、reminds us how much is possible to a human being. He is living proof that an individual can reach great attainments and that profuse exertion in pursuit of a daunting goal need not be fruitless.100 metres in 8 second？ Many contemporary amateur athletes would have broken world records if they had tak
16、en part in the first Olympic Games. Since then, records have fallen in track and field year after year as athletic performances have continually improved. If records fall, it is usually due to better equipment, training and diet, but recently, improvements have begun to slow down. At the 2000 Olympic, only three runners achieved Olympic bests with no world records. Some experts predict a ceiling for many events, such as 9.5 seconds. However, past predictions have nearly always
