China's one-armed basketball boy

2020-09-23江西南昌二十六中黄舒伟

疯狂英语·新读写 2020年9期

关键词：上篮球场上词数

江西南昌二十六中黄舒伟

有这样一段视频，画面中，一个独臂男孩穿着球服在球场上打球，尽管只能靠左手运球，但男孩动作精湛。胯下运球、过人、上篮……一系列动作都十分流畅、熟练。他就是来自广东云浮的14岁男孩张家城。

题材体裁文章词数建议用时励志人物新闻报道约500 10分钟

难词探意

1. dribble /'drɪbl/ v. 运球

2. brutal /'bruːtl/ adj. 残忍的

If a person lost an arm, how could he or she still play basketball? Zhang Jiacheng, a 14-year-old Chinese boy,did it and impressed everyone.

After a short video of the teenage basketball player playing a competition was recently posted online, Zhang soon became a hit and was highly praised for his strong will and extraordinary skills. Zhang's unexpected skills and the story behind it, became a trending topic on Weibo with more than 35 million views. In the video, Zhang showed his unusual abilities and shooting skills in front of a defense made up of several professional basketball players, and received a loud cheer from the audience watching on site. He also opened an account on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and released 15 short videos of him practicing basketball skills, which has earned him over one million likes in just a few days.

Born in southern Chinese province of Guangdong, Zhang lost his right arm in an accident at just five years old, which was a tragedy for a little kid. But Zhang has never surrendered to his fate as his love and passion for basketball grow stronger. Zhang is a fan of Kyrie Irving and he uses a poster of thedribblingmaster as the cover image of his Douyin account. The one-armed teenager dreams to be a basketball player. “Give it a try, or give it up,” he wrote when releasing a video.

“Heart is always the strongest part of the body,” said Yi Jianlian, current Chinese Basketball Association (CBA)'s all-time leading scorer, after watching the teenager's short video. “Your right hand has been taken away in abrutalway, but you have the best left hand. You are the real star in this game,” former CBA player Wang Jing spoke highly of Zhang's performance. Zhu Fangyu, general manager of defending champions the Guangdong Southeast Tigers, wrote on his Weibo account that the CBA powerhouse would like to invite Zhang to visit the team and watch home games. “This is the best kid I have ever seen playing basketball,” Zhu said, noting that as soon as this season's CBA reopens and audiences are allowed to come and watch games, they will invite the teenager.

“I didn't even realize he had only one arm when I first watched the video,” one commentator wrote. Another said, “Hard work makes dreams come true.He is living his unique life to the fullest.” Stephen Curry, a two-time NBA Most Valuable Player, urged his 4.5 million followers on Chinese Twitter-like Weibo to locate Zhang after being amazed by the boy's amazing talent. Curry wrote,“Who is this kid? Help me find him! Keep being yourself and don't let anyone tell you that you can't.” Zhang said that he was overwhelmed by the support and praise he had received. “I'm really excited that even NBA stars commented,” he said in a video. “Thank you guys for your support. I will keep studying and training hard.”

Reading Check

1. What can we know about Zhang according to the text?

A. He is a fan of Stephen Curry.

B. His strong will is worth praising.

C. He lost his right arm when he was 13 years old.

D. His passion for basketball decreased as he grew up.

2. Which can replace the underlined word “surrendered” in paragraph 3?

A. Given in. B. Come up. C. Got down. D. Set about.

3. How did Zhang feel for the support he had received?

A. Calm. B. Embarrassed. C. Frightened. D. Excited.

Language Study

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