Learning English

Athlete's 200m 'record' only 185m

Athletics commentator Steve Cram was almost speechless when he thought that 200m sprinter Noah Lyles had smashed Usain Bolt’s world record, but it turns out that Lyles had started the race from the wrong start line. Neil and Georgina look at the vocabulary in the news around this story.

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The story

A pretty spectacular mistake last night left athletics commentator Steve Cram almost lost for words. ‘Here’s Lyles he’s about to finish. That cannot be right! That cannot be right’. ‘I was about to say the exact same thing’. Yeah, this is the kind of stuff you can’t make up. US sprinter Noah Lyles was racing against two other athletes over 200m all in different locations using a special timing system and he is very fast, but he’s not that fast. He crossed the line in a time that would have smashed Usain Bolt’s world record only to find out… ‘He started at the wrong start line – ran 185 metres – make of that what you will’. So he was 15 metres short. It means he technically didn’t complete the race. He was moved into third place, so he didn’t bag the £8,000 prize either. Not his best day out.

Key words and phrases

blunder
careless or serious mistake

• Tactical blunders cost him the election.
• He blunders around knocking things over – he’s very clumsy.

transpires
becomes apparent

• The electricity didn’t work but then it transpired we hadn’t paid the bill.
• It transpired after the court case that he’d committed the same crime before.

mix-up
mistake that creates confusion

• It was a very embarrassing mix-up for the politician.
• The ticket mix-up meant they missed half the game.

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