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  3. In 1960, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila earned an Olympic gold medal without wearing any shoes. But bare feet on the Olympic

In 1960, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila earned an Olympic gold medal without wearing any shoes. But bare feet on the Olympic

admin2015-03-25  34
问题     In 1960, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila earned an Olympic gold medal without wearing any shoes. But bare feet on the Olympic track these days are passe, as athletes slip into ever more high-tech gear. Shoes, swimsuits, and clothing are getting lighter and stronger, adhering like glue to athletes’ bodies and moving more fluidly through air and water.
    In Beijing, U. S. track and field athletes will be wearing Nike shoes and clothing that incorporate threads made of Vectran, a superstrong liquid crystal polymer that withstands high temperatures. The result, according to Nike, is lighter, stiffer shoes to reduce friction and clothes that reduce drag by 7% compared with the Nike outfits worn at the 2004 games in Athens.
    Sprinters will also benefit from even tighter compression garments. In theory, these improve performance because of proprioception, that unconscious ability that enables you to pinpoint your nose when your eyes are closed. Physiologist Russ Tucker of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, says that because runners need to contract muscles precisely—at the proper angle, velocity, and time—tight-fitting garments help the brain identify where in space the limb is poised so they know when to activate the muscle.
    In the water, the Speedo LZR Racer suit, which debuted in March 2008, is all the buzz. Swimmers donning the suit have broken 46 world records so far. The suit includes polyurethane panels placed strategically around parts of the torso, abdomen, and lower back that experience high amounts of drag in the pool. It also incorporates a corset-like structure that keeps the body in a streamlined position. Raul Arellano, a biomechanist at the University of Granada, Spain, says the LZR Racer suit could benefit older athletes like 41-year-old Dara Torres of the United States, especially in areas where fat tends to accumulate.
    Some of the technologies needed to develop the suit " didn’t really exist 10 years ago," says Jason Rance, head of Aqualab in Nottingham, U. K. , the division of Speedo that designed the suit. Those include ultrasonic welding that eliminated the need for seams, and technology that allowed parts of the suit to be finely sanded and a waterrepellent substance added to prevent water from leaking in.
    But the suit has raised eyebrows. "Who’s going to win the gold medal, the swimmer or the technician?" asks Huub Toussaint, a biomechanist at the Free University in Amsterdam, who worries that the suit gives swimmers an unfair edge, although the international body governing the sport approved it.
    For all the hype surrounding space-age shoes and clothing, there’s a flip side: Any boost to performance could just be psychological. South Africa’s Tucker, who races for fun, says the compression garments make him feel powerful and secure. Such a superhero aura might give any competitor a mental edge. " It doesn’t really matter if the advantages are physically real or not," he says, "as long as the athlete gets some benefit. "  
Abebe Bikila is mentioned in Paragraph 1 to
选项 A、show how poor the people then were.
B、tell us that he was from an undeveloped country.
C、introduce the topic of the passage.
D、remind us of the past time.
答案C
解析 推理判断题。根据题干关键词Abebe Bikila可以定位至第一段，作者先说1960年的马拉松运动员赤脚参加比赛，随后做了一个转折，引出话题，即现在的运动员都穿高科技的运动衣了，[C]与此一致，故为答案。原文并非要表明当时的贫穷状态或埃塞俄比亚的落后，故排除[A]、[B]；这里也没有追忆过去的目的，故排除[D]。
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