Class 9 English Chapter 13: Nine Gold Medals

To step awkwardly, lose balance and almost fall. The poem pairs it with staggered, so the fall is not instantaneous — there is a moment in which it might still have been saved.

To walk or move with difficulty. Coming after stumbled, it prolongs the fall across a line of verse, which is why the moment feels as long as it does.

Destroyed. The phrase does double work: dirt is literally where he has landed, and dashed is what has happened to his hopes.

Extreme pain or suffering. The poem pairs it with frustration, so the cry carries both what has been lost and the unfairness of losing it that way.

Stopped running. The phrase describes a sudden halt at speed, which is the physical cost of the decision — they were already charging ahead.

They establish that the athletes have come from all over the country, that many weeks and months of training have come down to this, that a crowd has gathered round the old field, and that this is the final event of the day with excitement running high. The poem places them first in order to price what the eight runners are about to give up. Everything they will surrender is on the page before the gun fires, which is why the decision they make later costs them something.

The signal is given, the pistol explodes and so do the runners, all charging ahead. But the smallest among them stumbles and staggers, and falls to the asphalt instead. The two verbs do different work: stumbled is stepping awkwardly and losing balance, while staggered is moving with difficulty. Used together they stretch the fall across a line of verse, so that a reader watches it happening rather than being told that it did — and there is a moment in which it might still have been saved.

The fallen athlete's dreams and efforts are dashed in the dirt, which works on two levels at once: dirt is literally where he has landed, and dashed is what has happened to everything the first stanza described. The stanza then ends with a promise rather than an event. The speaker swears that as surely as he stands there telling the story, the same goes for what next occurred — so the reader is told that something is coming before being told what it is.

They pull hard behind him — the ones who had trained so long for this — and one by one they all turn round and go back to help him, bringing the young boy to his feet. Two details make it costly. They were already charging ahead, so pulling up is a halt at speed rather than a swerve; and the phrase one by one means the choice was made eight separate times by eight people, each of whom could have run on.

All nine join hands and continue, so that the hundred-yard dash is reduced to a walk, and the poet remarks that the banner above reading Special Olympics could not have been more on the mark. The significance is in what each measures: a dash exists to establish who is fastest, while a walk establishes nothing of the kind. Turning one into the other is the poem's way of saying that the contest has been set aside for something it was never designed to award.

Nobody came first. A hundred-yard dash normally produces one gold, one silver and one bronze — exactly what the first stanza said the athletes had come for — so the title records a result the race did not produce and the occasion did. The last line then admits that a standing ovation and nine beaming faces said more than the poet's words ever will. The admission is deliberate: he stops there rather than explaining something the reader has already understood.

The first two stanzas set the scene and do nothing else. Athletes have come from all over the country to run for the gold, the silver and the bronze, with many weeks and months of training coming down to these games. Spectators gather round the old field to cheer the young women and men, the final event of the day approaches, and excitement is high.

The third stanza brings them to the line. The blocks are set out for those who would use them, the race is the hundred-yard dash, and nine resolved athletes stand at the back of the start, poised for the sound of the gun.

In the fourth the signal is given, the pistol explodes and so do the runners, all charging ahead — but the smallest among them stumbles and staggers, and falls to the asphalt instead.

The fifth gives him a cry of frustration and anguish, his dreams and efforts dashed in the dirt. And it ends by promising that what happened next is as certain as the speaker standing there telling it.

In the sixth, the eight other runners pull up on their heels — the ones who had trained so long to compete. One by one they all turn round and go back to help him, and bring the young boy to his feet.

In the seventh, all nine join hands and continue. The hundred-yard dash is reduced to a walk, and the banner above them reading Special Olympics could not have been more on the mark.

And the eighth ends the race with nine gold medals. They come to the finish line holding hands still, and a standing ovation with nine beaming faces said more than the poet's words ever will.

The cost is built before the decision is taken. The first stanza establishes that the athletes have travelled from all over the country and that many weeks and months of training are coming down to this one afternoon. The second adds a crowd gathered round the field and the fact that this is the final event of the day, with excitement running high. None of this is scene-setting for its own sake: it is an inventory of what the eight will surrender, laid out on the page before anybody has moved.

The third stanza then puts nine resolved athletes at the start, poised for the gun, so that the reader arrives at the fall with the runners at full commitment.

When the eight stop, the poem is careful about how. They pull up on their heels — which describes a halt at speed, not a swerve or a hesitation. They were already charging ahead, so stopping is itself the sacrifice. And the poem immediately reminds us who they are: the ones who had trained for so long to compete. The reminder is placed exactly where it will hurt.

The phrase one by one completes it. This was not a single decision taken by a group under pressure of the moment; it was made eight separate times, by eight people, each of whom could have kept running while the others turned.

As for the turning point, the fall is the problem rather than the change. Up to the end of stanza 5 the poem is a race with an accident in it, of a kind sport produces every week. From stanza 6 it becomes a different sort of story altogether, and everything afterwards — the joined hands, the walk, the nine medals, the ovation — follows from that moment and from no other. The poet even announces the turn in advance, swearing at the end of stanza 5 that what came next is as certain as his standing there telling it.

Once the fallen athlete is on his feet, all nine join hands and continue, and the hundred-yard dash is reduced to a walk. The change of pace is the poem's central gesture. A dash exists for one purpose, to establish who is fastest over a fixed distance; a walk establishes nothing of the kind. Turning one into the other is how the poem says that the contest has been set aside in favour of something the contest was never designed to award — and it says it without a word of comment.

The banner is mentioned at exactly that moment. Reading Special Olympics, and hanging above a race that has just stopped being a race, it could not, the poet says, have been more on the mark. The remark works because of its placing: the name of the occasion turns out to describe what has happened on the track rather than merely labelling the event.

The race ends with nine gold medals. They come to the finish line holding hands still, and a standing ovation with nine beaming faces said more than the poet's words ever will.

That last line is an admission, and a deliberate one. Having brought the reader to the point of understanding, the poet declines to explain, and says instead that the sight itself carried more than any description could. It is a poem acknowledging the limits of poems at exactly the moment when a further sentence would have spoiled the effect.

And the title follows from all of it. A hundred-yard dash produces a gold, a silver and a bronze, which is precisely what the first stanza said the athletes had come for. Nobody came first here. So the title records a result that the race did not produce and the occasion did, and names the poem after the thing that was actually achieved rather than the thing that was being contested.

The repetition of the same opening consonant in words placed close together. Here it does two jobs — two s sounds carry the fall, and three d sounds carry its cost.

Language that makes the reader see. The poem gives four pictures in sequence: a start line, a field of runners in motion, a row of joined hands, and nine faces.

Language that makes the reader hear. The poem's sounds are a pistol, a cry and applause — a beginning, a disaster and a verdict.

The attitude a poet takes towards the subject. In this poem it is not constant: it shifts twice, and the shifts are what make the ending land.

The feeling a poem leaves in its reader, which need not match its events. Here the events include a fall, a lost race and no winner, and the mood is nonetheless uplifting.

Alliteration appears in stumbled and staggered, two s sounds for one fall, and in dreams, dashed and dirt, three d sounds for what the fall cost. Both clusters sit in the two lines that matter most, and the rest of the poem has almost none, so the sound thickens exactly where the poem slows. The auditory imagery consists of three noises only — the pistol exploding, the cry of frustration and anguish, and the standing ovation — and they mark the beginning, the disaster and the verdict. Nothing else in the poem makes a sound, so the eight runners turn back in silence.

Imagery is doing almost all the work, because the poem never goes inside anybody's mind. Every picture it offers — the blocks lined up, the runners charging ahead, nine athletes walking hand in hand, nine beaming faces — is something a spectator in the stands could have seen, and even the fallen boy's feelings are inferred from a cry rather than described. That restraint makes the images carry the emotion instead of merely illustrating it, and it means the reader arrives at the meaning of each moment rather than being told it.

It opens excited and expectant, with training, medals, a gathering crowd and the final event of the day. It turns distressed at the fall, giving the athlete a cry of frustration and anguish and his dreams dashed in the dirt. And it ends warm and admiring, almost awed, with the poet conceding that the ovation and the faces said more than his words ever will. The shifts matter because a poem that stayed excited would be a sports report and one that stayed distressed would be a poem about bad luck. The two turns are what make the ending arrive as a release rather than as a conclusion.

One of uplift. It is surprising because the events on the page do not support it: an athlete fell, a race was abandoned, nobody came first, and months of training produced no result, which on paper is a plain disappointment. The reader nonetheless closes the poem moved rather than sorry, because in the space between stanza 5 and stanza 6 the poem quietly redefines what the afternoon was about. The result stops being the measure of it, and by the last stanza there is nothing left to be disappointed by.

The phrase means they stopped running — not that they moved aside, tried to run faster or jumped ahead. The distinction matters, because moving aside would let the race continue while stopping is what ends it. The trait they share may be called compassion, generosity or selflessness; what is common to all three is choosing somebody else's need over their own result. And it is certainly the turning point: up to stanza 5 the poem is a race with an accident in it, of a kind that happens at sports meetings every week, while from stanza 6 it becomes a different kind of story, and everything afterwards follows from that moment.

It would have become an ordinary sports poem, and a much smaller one. The fall would turn into an obstacle for a hero to overcome or a misfortune to be pitied. The eight runners would become an interruption — a delay before somebody won — rather than the subject. The title would name a winner. And the ending would be a result instead of a picture. What would disappear is precisely what the poem exists for: the moment when nine people decide, without any discussion, that the thing they had trained for months is not the most important thing available to them in that minute.

The alliteration is sparing and deliberate. Stumbled and staggered gives two s sounds to a single fall, stretching it out; dreams, dashed and dirt gives three d sounds to what that fall cost. Both clusters occur in the two lines the poem most wants a reader to slow down over, and almost nowhere else, so the thickening of sound coincides exactly with the thickening of consequence.

The auditory imagery is even more restricted. There are three noises in the whole poem: the pistol exploding, the cry of frustration and anguish, and the standing ovation. They mark the beginning, the disaster and the verdict. Everything else happens silently — including, importantly, the moment when eight runners turn round, which no shout accompanies and no word explains.

The visual imagery supplies four pictures in sequence: the blocks lined up at the start, the runners charging ahead, nine athletes holding hands and walking, and nine beaming faces at the finish.

And here is the point about all of it. Every one of these sights and sounds is something a spectator in the stands could have witnessed. The poem never enters a runner's mind. It does not tell us what the eight were thinking as they stopped, or what the fallen boy felt when they reached him — his despair is inferred from a cry, and his relief is not mentioned at all.

That is why the imagery has to work so hard: it is all the poem has. And it is also why the poem is as effective as it is. Being shown a row of joined hands and left to work out what it means is a different experience from being told that the runners felt united, and the poem trusts the reader to make the second from the first every time.

The tone is not constant, and the changes are the poem's method.

It opens excited and expectant. Athletes have come from across the country, months of training are coming down to this, a crowd has gathered, and the final event of the day is approaching with excitement running high. Everything in the first two stanzas is anticipation.

It turns distressed at the fall. The smallest of the runners goes down on the asphalt and cries out in frustration and anguish, with his dreams and efforts dashed in the dirt.

And it ends warm and admiring, almost awed. The poet's last act is to concede to his own subject: the ovation and the nine beaming faces, he says, said more than his words ever will.

Those two shifts matter. A poem that stayed excited would be a sports report; a poem that stayed distressed would be a poem about bad luck. The turns are what allow the ending to arrive as a release rather than a conclusion.

The mood, meanwhile, is one of uplift — and this deserves stating plainly, because the events do not support it. Somebody fell. A race was abandoned. Nobody came first. Months of preparation produced no result. On paper the afternoon is a disappointment, and the reader nonetheless closes the poem moved rather than sorry. The explanation is that between stanza 5 and stanza 6 the poem redefines what the afternoon was about, so that by the end there is nothing left to be disappointed by.

The message follows from that. What people do for one another can matter more than what they win. And a second claim sits underneath it, quieter and more interesting: that a contest is worth having partly for the chances it creates to stop competing. The poem does not sneer at the race. It gives the training full weight, calls the athletes resolved, and simply observes that eight of them found something better available in that minute, and took it.

The first extract is the sixth stanza, in which the eight other runners stop.

The phrase about their heels means they stopped running. Of the options offered, moved aside is the tempting wrong answer, and the distinction is worth stating: moving aside would let the race continue, whereas stopping is what ends it. A trait common to all eight may be given as compassion, or as generosity, or as selflessness — what all three name is the choosing of somebody else's need over one's own result. The tone of the lines is admiring and quietly astonished, and the giveaway is a piece of information the reader does not need: the poet pauses mid-stanza to remind us that these are the ones who had trained for so long to compete, which stanza 1 already established. He repeats it because he cannot quite get over it. As for the young athlete, he might well have felt comforted, surprised, and no longer alone in his disappointment, though the poem states none of this and leaves it to be inferred. And the moment is certainly a turning point: before it the poem is a race with an accident in it, and after it a different kind of story, with everything that follows depending on this moment and no other.

The second extract is the eighth stanza, at the finish.

The nine felt happy, proud and united — the poem offers nine beaming faces and hands still held, where the word still shows that nobody let go once the walking was done. All nine were given gold because the achievement the occasion values had been shared by every one of them; nobody came first, so a medal recording speed would have had nothing to record, and the gold records what they did instead. The holding of hands signifies solidarity — unity, friendship, equality, nine people arriving as one rather than in an order. The standing ovation indicates that the spectators were amazed, not speechless, since applause is the opposite of speechlessness, and they had a great deal to say and said it with their hands. And the last line means that the sight itself carried more than any description could, which is why the poet stops there rather than explaining what the reader has already understood.

A pair or group of words that habitually appear together. Nothing forbids the alternatives — heavy rain and strong rain are both grammatical — but only one of them sounds like English, and that is what a collocation records.

Feeling sorry for somebody from outside their situation. It is kind, and it keeps a distance: the speaker has not entered the trouble.

Understanding how somebody feels from inside their situation — imagining oneself into it rather than observing it. Closer than sympathy, and still not action.

Understanding, and then staying. It adds to empathy the decision to do something about it, which is what the eight runners in the poem display.

A short, catchy line carrying an idea — eight to ten words at most. Brevity is the point: a slogan has to survive being read from across a room.

A collocation is two or more words that normally turn up side by side. The poem supplies standing ovation as an adjective-noun collocation, with gold medals and beaming faces as two more. The idea matters because the alternatives break no rule: rising applause and shining faces are both grammatical and neither is English usage. A collocation records what is actually said rather than what is permitted, so a learner who knows every rule of grammar and no collocations will produce sentences that are correct and still sound wrong.

Big and large are close in meaning and behave differently: a big decision is ordinary English while a large decision is not. Heavy and strong show the same thing in both directions — heavy rain is normal but strong rain is not, while strong tea is normal but heavy tea is not. Neither pair can be separated by definition, since the words mean much the same; the difference is entirely in the company each keeps, which is precisely what a table of collocations records.

Littlest becomes youngest, smiling becomes positive, huge becomes loud, terrible becomes significant, and gaudy becomes noisy. The skill is precision rather than vocabulary size, because none of the underlined words is bad English. Gaudy describes how something looks where the sentence describes a sound; terrible carries a judgement the sentence does not want; huge measures size where a cry is measured in volume; smiling describes a face rather than an attitude; and littlest means size where the sentence means age. Each is a near-miss, and a near-miss is harder to notice than a blunder.

That he began his career in sport with track events is true — he took part in various track events in Chennai in 1991. That he has been coaching special athletes for ten years is false, since the talk says he has been doing it for over fifteen years. And that he does all the household work himself is true, because he lives entirely alone and carries out all the daily chores, which he says keeps him fit as well.

Sympathy is feeling sorry for somebody from outside their situation — kind, and at a distance. Empathy is understanding how they feel from inside it, which is closer but still not action. Compassion is understanding and then staying, adding a decision to do something about it. The poem illustrates the third. The eight runners do not call out that they are sorry, and they do not merely understand what the fallen boy is feeling; they stop, go back for him, and stay with him to the end of the race.

The Paralympics is for athletes with disabilities in general, and its symbol is the Agitos, from the Latin meaning I move. The Special Olympics provides sports training and competition in Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, and works towards a better world by building acceptance, and a place for everybody. The distinction matters because it is the Special Olympics banner that hangs over this poem's race. An occasion built on acceptance and inclusion can award nine gold medals without contradicting itself, whereas a contest built only on speed could not.

A collocation is two or more words that normally turn up side by side. The poem's own instance is standing ovation, an adjective-noun pairing, and two more can be taken from the same poem: gold medals and beaming faces.

What makes the idea worth teaching is that the alternatives break no rule at all. Rising applause and shining faces are grammatical, and simply are not what English says. A collocation therefore records usage rather than legality, and a learner who has mastered every rule of grammar while knowing no collocations will write sentences that are correct and sound wrong to any native ear.

The table extends this. Big takes disappointment, failure, surprise and decision. Heavy takes rain, traffic, loss and responsibility. Strong takes opinion, smell, tea and evidence. Large takes crowd, amount, family and area. Great takes deal, pleasure, danger and achievement. The instructive part is the overlaps: big and large are close in meaning and behave differently, since a big decision is ordinary and a large decision is not; heavy rain is normal and strong rain is not, while strong tea is normal and heavy tea is not. No definition separates these pairs. Only the company each word keeps does.

The adjective exercise makes a related point from the other direction. Five underlined words must be replaced from a box, with no adjective used twice: littlest becomes youngest, smiling becomes positive, huge becomes loud, terrible becomes significant, and gaudy becomes noisy.

And not one of the underlined words is bad English. Each is wrong only in its own sentence. Gaudy describes an appearance where the sentence describes a sound. Terrible passes a judgement the sentence does not want, since the difference is large rather than awful. Huge measures size where a cry is measured in volume. Smiling belongs to a face and not to an attitude. Littlest means size where age is meant.

So both exercises train the same thing: precision. And both target near-misses rather than blunders, which is the harder and more useful skill, since a plain mistake announces itself and a near-miss does not.

The talk opens by addressing listeners who may be feeling low, and promises something that will inspire them to push their boundaries — a phrase the exercise asks about, and which means to challenge themselves.

His career begins in 1991 with various track events in Chennai. In 1995, while a student at the Okhla Centre of Learning and Development, he is selected in football for the Special Olympics World Summer Games held at Connecticut in the United States, and that is where his Special Olympics journey begins. The talk calls it a milestone that changed his life, and the exercise asks for the same idea in one word: a turning point. He goes on to take part in several special games afterwards, primarily in football, and later represents Special Olympics Bharat in Spain at a World Athletics Championship. Gradually he trains as a coach.

He has now been coaching special athletes in sport and related values for over fifteen years — which is the detail that makes the second true-or-false statement false, since it proposes ten. He believes sport is important for everyone because it brings positivity, fitness and discipline, and the exercise asks for the first of these: a positive outlook.

And then the talk turns to things that have nothing to do with competition. He jogs for two hours every day. Despite a speech difficulty he is independent and confident. He lives entirely by himself and does all the daily chores at home, which he says keeps him fit too. Finally, he says that had he not been introduced to the Special Olympics, he cannot imagine what else there would have been for him.

That ending is the point of the whole talk. The medals and the championships are the visible part, but what the presenter chooses to finish on is a man who lives alone, manages his own household and runs for two hours a day. The subject is not a sporting record but a life somebody built, and the chores are the evidence for it.

The Olympic Games are dated to 776 BC, when they formed part of an ancient Greek festival celebrating Zeus, the god of sky and weather. They are held every four years, alternating between summer and winter editions. The motto is Citius-Altius-Fortius-Communiter, which translates as Faster-Higher-Stronger-Together. The torch symbolises peace and friendship: a flame is lit at Olympia in Greece a few months before the Games and carried over several weeks to the host city, where the cauldron is lit to begin them. And the five rings, produced in 1913, express the activity of the Olympic Movement and represent the five continents joined, and athletes come together from every part of the world.

The Paralympics are for athletes with disabilities. Their symbol is the Agitos, from the Latin meaning I move, and it is the visual representation of the Paralympic Movement.

The Special Olympics puts on training and competition across a range of Olympic-style sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. It works towards a better world by building acceptance, and a place for everybody.

The distinction between the second and the third is the one most often blurred, and it is the one this poem turns on. The banner hanging above the race is the Special Olympics banner, and the poet remarks that it could not have been more on the mark.

The reason is that an occasion founded on acceptance and inclusion can award nine gold medals without contradicting itself. A contest founded only on speed cannot: a medal recording who was fastest would have nothing to record, since nobody came first. What the nine are given gold for is what the occasion actually values, and the poem's whole ending depends on the reader understanding which of the three Games this is.

They establish that the athletes have come from all over the country, that many weeks and months of training have come down to this, that a crowd has gathered round the old field, and that this is the final event of the day with excitement running high. The poem places them first in order to price what the eight runners are about to give up. Everything they will surrender is on the page before the gun fires, which is why the decision they make later costs them something.

The signal is given, the pistol explodes and so do the runners, all charging ahead. But the smallest among them stumbles and staggers, and falls to the asphalt instead. The two verbs do different work: stumbled is stepping awkwardly and losing balance, while staggered is moving with difficulty. Used together they stretch the fall across a line of verse, so that a reader watches it happening rather than being told that it did — and there is a moment in which it might still have been saved.

The fallen athlete's dreams and efforts are dashed in the dirt, which works on two levels at once: dirt is literally where he has landed, and dashed is what has happened to everything the first stanza described. The stanza then ends with a promise rather than an event. The speaker swears that as surely as he stands there telling the story, the same goes for what next occurred — so the reader is told that something is coming before being told what it is.

Alliteration appears in stumbled and staggered, two s sounds for one fall, and in dreams, dashed and dirt, three d sounds for what the fall cost. Both clusters sit in the two lines that matter most, and the rest of the poem has almost none, so the sound thickens exactly where the poem slows. The auditory imagery consists of three noises only — the pistol exploding, the cry of frustration and anguish, and the standing ovation — and they mark the beginning, the disaster and the verdict. Nothing else in the poem makes a sound, so the eight runners turn back in silence.

Imagery is doing almost all the work, because the poem never goes inside anybody's mind. Every picture it offers — the blocks lined up, the runners charging ahead, nine athletes walking hand in hand, nine beaming faces — is something a spectator in the stands could have seen, and even the fallen boy's feelings are inferred from a cry rather than described. That restraint makes the images carry the emotion instead of merely illustrating it, and it means the reader arrives at the meaning of each moment rather than being told it.

It opens excited and expectant, with training, medals, a gathering crowd and the final event of the day. It turns distressed at the fall, giving the athlete a cry of frustration and anguish and his dreams dashed in the dirt. And it ends warm and admiring, almost awed, with the poet conceding that the ovation and the faces said more than his words ever will. The shifts matter because a poem that stayed excited would be a sports report and one that stayed distressed would be a poem about bad luck. The two turns are what make the ending arrive as a release rather than as a conclusion.

A collocation is two or more words that normally turn up side by side. The poem supplies standing ovation as an adjective-noun collocation, with gold medals and beaming faces as two more. The idea matters because the alternatives break no rule: rising applause and shining faces are both grammatical and neither is English usage. A collocation records what is actually said rather than what is permitted, so a learner who knows every rule of grammar and no collocations will produce sentences that are correct and still sound wrong.

Big and large are close in meaning and behave differently: a big decision is ordinary English while a large decision is not. Heavy and strong show the same thing in both directions — heavy rain is normal but strong rain is not, while strong tea is normal but heavy tea is not. Neither pair can be separated by definition, since the words mean much the same; the difference is entirely in the company each keeps, which is precisely what a table of collocations records.

Littlest becomes youngest, smiling becomes positive, huge becomes loud, terrible becomes significant, and gaudy becomes noisy. The skill is precision rather than vocabulary size, because none of the underlined words is bad English. Gaudy describes how something looks where the sentence describes a sound; terrible carries a judgement the sentence does not want; huge measures size where a cry is measured in volume; smiling describes a face rather than an attitude; and littlest means size where the sentence means age. Each is a near-miss, and a near-miss is harder to notice than a blunder.