Learning English - Words in the News - South Africa's female footballers

Last updated at 17:56 BST, Wednesday, 27 June 2012

South Africa's female footballers

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Report and vocabulary

Transcript: In training for the Olympics.

South Africa's women's football team is the first in the country's history to qualify for the games.

Although the team is dreaming of winning gold, their debut is about more than the glory alone.

Women's football is not yet professional in South Africa, so the team wants to raise the profile of the sport and inspire more young female athletes.
in training for: practising for
to qualify for: to get to the final stage of
glory: great achievement, high honour
professional: something people are paid to do
to raise the profile of: to increase awareness of

Exercise

Use one of the words or phrases below to complete each of these sentences from 大象传媒 News reports.

Note that you may have to change the form of a word to complete the sentence correctly.

training / to qualify for / glory / professional / to raise the profile of

1. All eyes may be on the England football team as they battle for Euro 2012 success, but a more mechanical squad from Devon is also bidding for ________.

2. Ugandan track event athletes have blamed their failure ________________ the Olympics on the inferior track they were forced to use for time trials.

3. Although a former _________ diver, it was his first time under water in more than a decade and his morale was high after the 100 hours were up, organisers said.

4. "We can look forward to welcoming many elite Olympians and Paralympians to these shores," she said. "This will help ______________________ the sports and facilities we have on offer and I hope will inspire our local athletes of tomorrow."

5. Uefa has confirmed there were "isolated incidents of racist chanting" aimed at Netherlands players during an open _____________ session for Euro 2012.