📙 Part 2: Describe a famous athlete you know

This episode's vocabulary

To accomplish (verb) - to finish something successfully or to achieve something.

Feat (noun) - something difficult needing a lot of skill, strength, courage, etc. to achieve it.

Fame (noun) - the state of being known or recognized by many people because of your achievements, skills, etc.

Coverage (noun) - the reporting of a particular important event or subject.

Go to someone's head (phrase) - if success goes to your head, it makes you believe that you are more successful or powerful than you really are.

Paparazzi (plural noun) - the photographers who follow famous people everywhere they go in order to take photographs of them for newspapers and magazines.

Spotlight (noun) - public attention

Glorious (adj.) - deserving great admiration, praise, and honour.

Achievement (noun) - something very good and difficult that you have succeeded in doing.

Enlightening (adj.) - giving you more information and understanding of something.

-

Questions and Answers

M: Now Rory is gonna describe a famous athlete he knows. Athlete, a sportsman or a sportswoman, athlete. He's going to say who he or she is, how he knows him or her, what he or she has achieved. And Rory is going to say why he or she is famous. Rory, are you ready to rock and roll?

R: I am, let's get cracking.

M: Bring it on. Off you go.

R: Well, I'd like to talk about Emma Raducanu. I'm pretty sure everyone became aware of her following her terrific performance at that big tennis competition in America. I think it's called "Open" or something like that. The media were going wild about her. And I think they still are, by all accounts. She's all over social media as well. Like I said, she did a great job winning all of her matches at the tennis. But the most extraordinary thing is that she did this when she was only 18 years old. Admittedly after years and years of practice, but still, it isn't something that's exactly common among young people these days. In addition to accomplishing this feat so young, she was also the first British person to do it in decades. It's like 40 years or something since a British person won this award, so that's great for her. I suppose with the 24-hour news cycle of day, she's got an advantage in terms of being able to gain fame so quickly. However, that doesn't discount all the work that she put in. As if that isn't impressive enough, it turns out, she speaks Chinese as well. So, well, she was able to give a speech to people in China very fluently, and she said, Thank you for supporting her, which is probably a nice thing to do, I think. Despite all this media coverage, it doesn't seem to have gone to her head though. And she presents herself really well in public. And, though, hopefully, the paparazzi will let her have some time to herself when the media spotlight moves on and she can have a reasonably stable life after such a glorious achievement. But yeah, I'm really pleased that such a person has come from my country, and hopefully that's been enlightening and informative for everybody else who's listening to that.

M: What about your friends? Do they know her?

R: I think everybody knows her now. Thanks to the media.

M: I don't. Well, now I know.

R: How can you not know?

M: I don't know.

R: Google her. She's a very famous person now.

M: Yeah. I am googling her. Yes, dear listener, also, please Google Emma Raducanu.

-