The Olympic Games have changed a lot since they were first held in Athens, Greece, in 1896. At that time, winners got silver medals instead of gold ones. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? People thought silver was better than gold．No women competed in the first Olympics, and only 14 countries took part.

   In the early years of the Olympics, there weren’t many sports. In the first Greek Games, event usually took place in the Panathenaic Stadium（雅典体育场），and you can still see it today. Players did not wear their countries’ clothes in 1896.They traveled to Athens by themselves and had to use their own money to take part.

New sports have been put into the Olympics over time, like badminton and table tennis, Some older games are no longer played, like tug-of-war（拔河）.

   Swimming was different in 1896. There was a 1200-metre race in the sea．A boat took swimmers out into the sea and they had to swim back to land．The first person to win that race was Alfred Hajos. He seemed happy just to finish. “I just wanted to live. That’s more important than winning,” he said．

1．In the first Olympics, winners were given____.

A．gold medals   B．silver and gold medals   C．much money  D．silver medals

2．In the early years of the Olympics__

A．there weren’t many sports 

B．players wore the sports clothes that people wear today 

C．people from about 200 countries took part

D．events usually took place in modern Olympics.

3．_____is no longer played in the modern Olympics.

A．Running       B．Tug-of-war       C．Table tennis        D．Swimming

4．The underlined sentence in the text really means______

A．he was happy because he would finish it

B．he seemed happy just because he finished it

C．he was happy because he gave up at last

D．he seemed happy because he still lived

5．Swimming took place in the ____ in 1896.

A．river           B．lake          C．swimming pool        D．sea