A: Meggie, do you like Liu Xiang, the famous hurdler? I bet you love him.
B: Yes, sure, he’s the pride of China. I think everyone loves him.
A: Well, I heard he just celebrated his 25th birthday. And guess what he did on his birthday?
B: What did he do?
A: He and the Chinese track and field team swore together under the Chinese national flag and signed an anti-doping declaration.
B: Anti-doping? Is that the word for today?
A: Yes, it is. In order to achieve better achievements and earn a big sum of money, many athletes use performance-enhancing drugs, this action is called doping. Anti is a prefix, means against, so anti-doping means against doping.
A: Yes. The International Olympic Committee said the anti-doping effort at the Beijing Summer Games would be more extensiveof any Olympics.
B: Good news. But what if some athletes successfully cheated in the games?
A: Once the truth is discovered, they will be stripped of their medals and punished. Marion Jones, for example, the winner of five medals at the 2000 Olympic Games admitted last year to doping before the Sydney Summer Olympics. Then she accepted a two-year suspension.
