Exercise 1 page 14
1 competed
2 world record
3 course
4 competitors
5 champion
6 tournament
Challenge! page 14
Students' own answers
Exercise 2 page 14
1 It takes place in the USA.
2 It started about thirty years ago.
3 They were talking about horse-racing.
4 It takes place every year.
5 They have to complete a special course.
6 There is a type of rodeo for children.
Exercise 3 LISTENING 7 page 14
It all started in 1980, in a pub in Wales. Two men were having an argument about an unusual topic: one of them was saying that humans were faster than horses over a long distance, in a cross-country race. The other man was insisting that horses were much faster than humans. Who was right? They couldn't agree. Well, the owner of the pub – a man called Gordon Green – heard the argument and decided to find out the answer…by organizing a race between people and horses! The first race took place in the same year – 1980 – and the ‘man versus horse marathon' became a regular yearly event. (In fact, the course is only 35 km long, so it isn't actually a marathon.) The competitors were men, women…and horses. For the first few years, a horse always won the race. In 1985, a new rule allowed cyclists to take part as well and although a horse won the race that year too, it only just beat Jacquie Phelan, a champion cyclist from the USA. In 1989, British cyclist Tim Gould beat the first horse by three minutes. This was the first time that a human won the event. The first human to win the race on foot was Huw Lobb. In 2004, he completed the course in 2 hours, 5 minutes and 19 seconds. He won £25,000. That year there were 500 human competitors and 40 horses. The only other year a human won was in 2007. It seems that horses are faster than people after all. A horse usually wins the ‘man versus horse' marathon.
Exercise 4 LISTENING 7 page 14
1 b
2 a
3 b
4 b
5 c
6 c
7 b
8 c