2006年VOA标准英语-Japan's Arakawa Grabs Gold in Olympic Figu

By Parke Brewer¹
Turin
24 February 2006

Japan has won its first gold medal at the Winter Olympics, scoring a surprise win in women's figure skating.

 
Sasha Cohen (left), Shizuka Arakawa and Irina Slutskaya
  
Shizuka Arakawa not only won her nation's first medal at these Winter Games, but she also became the first ever Japanese to win the women's figure skating gold medal.

The top three women after Tuesday's short program were separated by less than one point, so the pressure was on for Thursday night's free skate, and Arakawa rose to the occasion, hitting all of her triple jumps and performing difficult spins. She now has an Olympic title to go with her world title from 2004.

American Sasha Cohen, first after the short program, fell on her opening triple Lutz and then stumbled out of her triple flip². She said she had to pull herself together after those mishaps³. "I took it one step at a time and I was able to believe when everything looked really dark and grey," she said.

Cohen was successful on five other triple jumps and earned the silver medal. "I definitely didn't think I was going to get any medal, so it was a nice surprise," she said.

Reigning⁴ world figure skating champion, Russian Irina Slutskaya, had been second after the short program, but she fell on a triple loop, was wobbly on a triple flip, and doubled one of her other scheduled triple jumps. She had to settle for the bronze medal.

1 brewer   

n. 啤酒制造者

参考例句：

• Brewer is a very interesting man. 布鲁尔是一个很有趣的人。
• I decided to quit my job to become a brewer. 我决定辞职，做一名酿酒人。

2 flip   

vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的

参考例句：

• I had a quick flip through the book and it looked very interesting.我很快翻阅了一下那本书，看来似乎很有趣。
• Let's flip a coin to see who pays the bill.咱们来抛硬币决定谁付钱。

3 mishaps   

n.轻微的事故，小的意外( mishap的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a series of mishaps 一连串的倒霉事
• In spite of one or two minor mishaps everything was going swimmingly. 尽管遇到了一两件小小的不幸，一切都进行得很顺利。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

4 reigning   

adj.统治的，起支配作用的

参考例句：

• The sky was dark, stars were twinkling high above, night was reigning, and everything was sunk in silken silence. 天很黑，星很繁，夜阑人静。
• Led by Huang Chao, they brought down the reigning house after 300 years' rule. 在黄巢的带领下，他们推翻了统治了三百年的王朝。