Week9 里約奧運

China’s swimmer Sun Yang out of 1,500m final

China’s world record holder and Olympic 1,500 metres freestyle champion Sun Yang blamed fever and flu medication for his failure to qualify for the Rio final.

Sun, who has already won a 200 metres freestyle gold and 400 metres silver and also become embroiled in a “drugs cheat” controversy, was 16th fastest overall in Friday’s heats with the top eight going through to Saturday’s final.

Italian Gregorio Paltrinieri, the world champion, was fastest in 14 minutes 44.51 seconds.

Sun, who set his record of 14:31.02 at the London 2012 Olympics, laboured through the heat and touched the wall in 15:01.97 — more than 30 seconds off his best.

“I feel better today but the past two days were worse,” he told reporters, saying he had resorted to flu medication. “I was afraid of catching a fever and affecting my other races so I had no choice but to increase the dosage.

“I didn’t expect my body’s condition and skill to deteriorate so quickly.”

Sun added that his muscles had been tired after the 800 metres race and the late nights of the Rio swimming programme had also taken a toll.

“I’ve been training in the U.S. for a while, and now I’ve suddenly come to Brazil, this has knocked my body clock and I find myself staring at the ceiling…awake at 3 or 4 a.m.,” added the swimmer.

The swimmer, the first Chinese to win gold in the pool, also missed the 1,500 metres final at last year’s world championships in Russia when he made a shock withdrawal.

China’s most successful male swimmer said at the time that he had felt uncomfortable while warming up.

His presence in Rio was already controversial, with the run-up to the Olympics overshadowed by a Russian doping scandal, since it emerged in 2014 that he had secretly served a three-month ban after testing positive for a banned stimulant.

China opted for a lenient punishment because Sun had been given medication, which had only just been added to the banned list, to treat a heart issue.

Australian swimmer Mack Horton, who qualified fourth fastest for the 1,500 metres final, stirred up a social media storm when he branded Sun a “drug cheat” before their 400 metres final on Saturday.

Horton went on to win that gold, with Chinese web-users bombarding his social media accounts and state media calling Australia “uncivilised” and “Britain’s offshore prison”.

Sun’s failure came after Chinese female swimmer Chen Xinyi was a no-show in the 50 metres freestyle heats.

Chinese state media, citing the country’s swimming association (CSA), said Chen had tested positive for a banned substance on Aug. 7.

網址：https://www.google.com.tw/amp/indianexpress.com/sports/rio-2016-olympics/chinas-sun-yang-out-of-1500m-final-swimming-2971776/lite/?client=ms-android-oppo

who:Sun Yang
what: He was blamed fever and flu medication
when:at the London 2012 Olympics

key words:
qualify有資格
embroiled始捲入
controversy爭議
dosage劑量
condition狀況
deteriorate惡化
presence出席
overshadowed黯然失色的
emerged出現
stimulant興奮劑
opted選擇
lenient寬容的
stir up煽動
branded烙印
bombarding轟炸

week8 pokemon go

Psychology Experts Explain Why ‘Pokemon Go’ Is So Addictive

I’ve spent my past few days staring at a screen, scouting the nearby terrain for imaginary creatures known as Pokémon.

I could have written that same sentence 18 years ago, when I was eight years old and addicted to playing Pokémon Blue on my Game Boy Color. But here I am as a 26-year-old in 2016, just as enchanted by these little critters as I was back in 1998. In the Pokémon universe, each fictional creature has its own special powers that correspond to its “type.” An aquatic Pokémon like the turtle-themed Squirtle, for example, attacks its enemies with blasts of water. A grass Pokémon such as Bulbasaur whips its enemies with vines. Each game encourages players to catch as many different varieties as possible and pit them in battles against one another to advance.

I’m far from the only adult hooked on Pokémon Go, the first official game in the Pokémon franchise made specifically for smartphones. The evidence is easily seen — unlike other Pokémon games, Go requires players to explore the real world around them in order to collect Pokémon. I could barely walk around for 10 minutes this weekend without hearing a fellow player excitedly yelp about a nearby Pikachu or Bulbasaur. Less than a week after it was launched in the U.S., Go sits atop the iPhone and Android app store popularity charts.

What’s creating all this excitement? In part, the fans that embraced Pokémon during their childhood in the 1990s are once again indulging in their old obsession. Nostalgia, experts say, can be a powerful force luring users to a new but familiar experience.

“If nostalgia is in play, and it evokes this positive emotion . . . our brain can substitute the question, ‘Does this make me happy’ for ‘Is this a good game?'” says Dr. Jamie Madigan, author of the book Getting Gamers: The Psychology of Video Games and Their Impact on People Who Play Them.

Indeed, nostalgia commands a powerful influence throughout pop culture, as evidenced by the sequels and reboots that seem unavoidable at movie theaters this summer. That’s because it is often associated with positive feelings and can help people feel more connected to others. At root, nostalgia is a kind of acute homesickness. The word comes from the Greeknostos, a return home, and algos, or pain.

“Nostalgia is just as much about the future as it is the past,” says Dr. Clay Routledge, a professor of psychology at North Dakota State University who has been studying the psychological effects of nostalgia for 10 years. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all if this Pokémon Go phenomenon was making people make new friends because they have these shared memories.” (A recent story in The Wall Street Journal suggests that is indeed the case.)

To be sure, nostalgia is not the sole cause of Pokémon Go’s overnight success. Pokémon fans have long clamored for a way to enjoy the franchise on smartphones. This represents their first chance to do so without using unofficial emulation software. “Putting [Pokémon] on the accessibility of a smartphone means the total available markets are monster numbers,” says P.J. McNealy, chief executive of consumer research firm Digital World Research. Also driving downloads is the game’s clever use of smartphone components like its GPS chip and camera, which together provide the illusion that wild Pokémon are out there in the real world, waiting to be caught.

That said, Pokémon Go’s clever game mechanics alone can’t explain why the game has become such a runaway hit. Go developer Niantic has a similar but non-Pokémon game, Ingress, that has a dedicated but comparatively small number of players. That’s evidence that Pokémon nostalgia, not gameplay alone, is the driving force behind what looks to be the breakout hit of the summer. Pokémon Go, says Routledge, is “this perfect marriage of nostalgia, bringing something old that people have these memories of from their childhood. And coupling that with technology that allows people to connect and share these experiences in ways they could not in the past.”

網址:http://time.com/4402123/pokemon-go-nostalgia/

who:psychology experts

what:explain why pokemon go is so addictive

key words:

terrain地型

enchant附魔

critter小動物

correspond 對應

aquatic水

blast爆破

franchise特許經營

indulging沉迷

obsession癡迷

luring 誘惑

nostalgia懷舊

evoke喚起

sequel續集
reboot重新啟動
sole唯一
clamored叫囂
emulation仿真
accessibility可接近性
illusion錯覺
dedicated專用
breakout爆發