Unit 13: The 22nd Sea Games - Reading

Exercise 1: Fill in each numbered blank with one suitable word or phrase. The 24th Southeast Asian Games was (1) _____ in Thailand from December 6 to December 16, 2007. The Thai Olympic Committee was (2) _____ the event to coincide with the commemoration of 80th birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Officials were studying the possibility of doing the events in multiple venues (3) _____ what had been done in Vietnam and the Philippines. It was (4) _____ sixth time Thailand hosted the SEA Games. Thailand hosted the 1959, 1967, 1975, 1985 and 1995 SEA Games. On 24 February 2006, northeast Thailand's Province authorities met to (5) _____ the 2007 SEA Games schedule, and progress on the province's under-construction US$65 million sports complex. The meeting provided an overview of (6) _____, and ended with reassurances that everything would be ready (7) _____ SEA Games in 2007. The sports (8) __ included a 5,000-seater indoor stadium and 16 tennis court facilities among other facilities scheduled to be finished on June 2007. The 2007 SEA Games featured (9) _____ than 400 events in 45 sports. The 24th edition of the games had the highest number of sporting events in the entire (10) _____ of the SEA Games, more events than the Asian Games and the Olympic Games.  

Exercise 2: Read the passage carefully and choose the correct answer. The 23rd Southeast Asian Games were held in the Philippines from November 27th to December 5th in 2005. The games were participated by the eleven nations of Southeast Asia. This was the first time that the opening and closing ceremonies were held in a large open field, despite the fact that Manila has many stadiums. The organization decided to hold the games at an open space to accommodate the large number of participants and spectators. As a result, the 2005 SEA Games ranked as having the largest audience - 200,000 people – during the opening and closing ceremonies. These games were also noted for having the most number of delegates in the history of the SEA Games. In the end, all participating countries received medals. Events in men's football actually started on November 20th, prior to the opening ceremony. Water polo events began on November 21st, women's football on November 23rd, sailing on November 26th, and tennis on November 26th; The first gold medal of the games was awarded to Singapore on November 25th when their water polo team came out undefeated during the round-robin tournament round. The Philippine team took the silver medal in that event, and Malaysia brought home the bronze. The Games were also considered a valuable opportunity for athletes to gain competition experience and preparation for the upcoming Asian Games and Olympic Games. It was purposely created to strengthen friendship, solidarity and understanding among neighboring countries in the region. This was the third SEA Games to be hosted by the Philippines. The last two times the Philippines hosted the games were in 1981, and again in 1991. There were 1,461 medals awarded, 444 of which were gold, 434 were silver, and 583 were bronze.