Slopestyle: My New Favorite Olympic Event

Every two to two and a half years, most of us are glued to our televisions for two to three weeks watching sporting events we wouldn’t ordinarily watch or don’t have access to on a regular basis. I personally enjoy the Summer and Winter Olympics because I get a chance to see and learn about sports outside the mainstream and have the opportunity to find a new sport to enjoy. During the Winter Olympics I’ll watch hockey, curling, figure skating, ice skating, speeding skating and maybe some luge and bobsledding events, but I don’t generally watch any snow-related events such as skiing or snowboarding because I’ve never been interested in them. However, this past weekend, I stumbled upon the Men’s Slopestyle event and I decided to watch it because it was a new Olympic event. I was glad I did because it was awesome. I’ve seen few things cooler in Olympic sports than snowboarders rotating in the air doing 1080s, 1260s, 1440s (higher numbers of degrees than I ever learned in math class). It’s an incredible experience to watch the snowboarders do different tricks off the railings and mini ramps then watch them spin around in the air and stick their landings. The experience is also a bit nerve-racking because the snowboarders could easily fall and hurt themselves. The Men’s Slopestyle event was especially fun to watch because the dark horse of the competition, American snowboarder, Sage Kotsenburg, won the gold medal.

Vocabulary

Glued to (verb): unable to take yourself away from something

Mainstream (noun, adj): most popular within a culture or country

Slopestyle (noun): a snowboarding event in which snowboarders do tricks on railings and make flips off different sized ramps

Rotating/Rotate (verb): to spin around in a circle; to change position or place (i.e. rotate a shift at a job, rotate turns in a science lab)

1080 – spin in 3 complete circles

1260 – spin in 3.5 circles

1440 – spin in 4 complete circles

Nerve-racking (adj): anxious; nervous; worry

Dark horse (noun) – not favored to win; underdog

Vocabulary Exercises

1.      Nowadays it is ____________ for elementary school children to own a cell phone.

2.      She was the _____________ of the figure skating competition because this was the first Olympics in which she participated.

3.      Walking on stage to receive my diploma was ____________.

4.      In ____________ it is difficult to complete a _________.

5.      After 5 minutes each group ____________ and goes to a different station.

6.      He was ____________ to his Xbox 360 once he bought Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

Grammar Point

To capitalize or not to capitalize? We know that proper nouns such as names of people, places, months, days, pets and so on should be capitalized, but what about words that are only capitalized in certain circumstances? The rule is that if you refer to a specific person, region, thing the word is capitalized, otherwise it is plural. For example, in the phrase “president of the United States” the word “president is not capitalized because it does not refer to someone or something specific; however, “president” is capitalized in the phrase “President Obama” because “president” refers to a specific person.

Grammar Exercise

State whether the sentence is correct or incorrect and change the mistake(s) if the sentence is incorrect.

1.      I live in southeastern New York.

2.      The next summer Olympics will be in Rio.

3.      The English monarch who has reigned the longest is queen Elizabeth II.

4.      My uncle’s birthday is on Valentine’s Day.