5 The biggest danger was the weather. It’s too dangerous to
climb in very strong winds and rain. But luckily, the weather
stayed fine.
6 Another danger was injuries. The rock is very hard and
sharp, but the climbers can’t wear gloves. Half way up the
rock face, Jorgeson cut his finger badly and they had to stop
for a few days.
7 But his hand got better, and on the evening of January 14th
2015, after climbing for nineteen days, they finally arrived at
the top.
8 Their lives will be very different now. TV stations and
newspapers want to interview them. That isn’t very
surprising, though, as Tommy and Kevin are now probably
the most famous climbers in the world!
3.35 Lesson 8F
Unstoppable 1 The cyclist In 1976, at the age of fifteen, Christian Haettich had
a serious car accident. He lost his left arm and his left leg.
For the next few years, he found it very difficult to live with
his disability. But in 1984 he saw a man with one leg cycle
up a steep hill. ‘I can do that,’ he thought, and he learnt to
cycle. It was really difficult – he fell off his bike many times –
but he kept trying.
In 1985, he began to compete in races for disabled cyclists.
His ambition was to compete in the Paralympic Games in
Sydney in 2000 and he trained hard to be in the French
team. But then the rules for the competition changed and
Christian could not take part because his disability did not
match the new rules. So Christian found a new challenge:
cycling up mountains. Now he competes in mountain races
and cycles around 27,000 kilometres every year!
2 The racing driver British driver Mike Newman enjoys breaking speed records.
For example, in 2013 he broke two – the land speed and the
water speed records. This achievement is more amazing
because Mike cannot see. He was born with a serious eye
disease and became completely blind at the age of eight.
For many years, Mike did not think it was possible to take