Athlete's 200m 'record' only 185m: BBC News Review

hi everybody this is neil from bbc learning english

it's news review and i'm joined by georgina hi georgina

hi neil hi everybody so today we're looking at

the story behind the headlines all about noah lyles and how he attempted to beat

a 200 meter world record it's a great story and

you can test yourself on the vocabulary on our website at bbclearningenglish.com

now let's hear some more about that story from this bbc radio one newsbeat

report a pretty spectacular mistake last night

left athletics commentator steve cram almost lost for words he is loud he's

about to finish that cannot be right i cannot be right

yeah this is the kind of stuff you can't make up us sprinting noah lyles was

racing against two other athletes over 200 meters

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 the wrong start line around

185 meters make of that what you will so he was 15

meters 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 yes so athletics commentator steve cram

was almost speechless when he thought that

noah lyles had managed to beat usain bolt's

200 meter world record in fact he hadn't because unfortunately

he had started the race at the wrong start line so was in fact 15 meters

short of the full 200 meters okay well that explains why he was so

fast you've been having a look at this story and picking

out the vocabulary people need to talk about it what have you got

i've got blunder transpires and mix-up blunder

transpires and mix-up let's start with your first headline with that word

blunder please so the headline is from sky news it is

noah lyles sprinter beats usain bolt's 200 meter world record before blunder

is uncovered blunder careless or serious mistake yeah and that's spelt

b-l-u-n-d-e-r and it is a noun and in this headline obviously

the serious mistake was that noah lyles started the race at

the wrong point and we should stress this was not

he had no idea that this had actually happened so it was uh

yeah it was it had serious consequences and made it impossible for him for to

complete the 200 meter race this word is um very popular in

headlines isn't it when we're speaking normally we're more

likely to use the word mistake aren't we yeah exactly i think it's a great word

for news headlines because it has such a distinct

meaning and everyone knows that it basically means a serious mistake that

has consequences it's also a verb isn't it

it is a verb yes so and often when it's used as a verb it's used with around

so to blunder around and it means uh when someone's very clumsy

so for example um oh my gosh have you made any

blunders lately neil i certainly have okay

tell us about your blunder georgina so i don't embarrass myself

yeah well this is very embarrassing and i have to be honest i think this may

have happened a few times but very recently a friend's boyfriend

told me about a surprise party that he was giving her but i didn't

really hear the surprise bit so when i saw my friend i was like oh

i'll see you on saturday at your birthday party

and it was a surprise and she didn't know anything about it so i made

a yeah it was a big blunder that i made and as you said then you made a blunder

so when when we use it as a noun blunder and we want to

make it into a verb we say make a blunder

yeah so that's the verb we use with it to make a blunder

great let's have a summary

time now for our second headline please georgina

the second headline is from cnn and it is

noah lyles breaks 200 meter world record but then it transpires he only ran 180

meters transpires becomes apparent yeah and it's about t-r-a-n-s-p-i-r-e

and it is a verb now this is used when something uh becomes clear but later on

so it's when something wasn't known but then it becomes common knowledge

and in this case uh noah lyle uh it became clear that he hadn't started

the race at the correct point which is why he unfortunately

couldn't break the world record or in fact

complete the 200 meter race and it is quite formal when it's used so

that's something to be aware of the last time i heard we used it

uh neil can you remember well there was a very obvious example

pretty much the last day we were in the office before lockdown

uh you brought in a lovely tin of biscuits didn't you

yeah they were delicious i actually don't know if they were delicious

because i didn't get any but yes that's the

problem nobody knows uh that they were delicious apart from

one person uh nobody thought that he'd been in but

it did actually transpire that rob had come into the building and uh well

you know helped himself yeah he was spotted

leaving the building with a you know uh crumbs of biscuits behind him

yeah he he said he enjoyed them later yeah so

we didn't know who did it in the end i'm sure i'm sure he did look happy

let's have a summary if you like stories about sport we've

got a great one for you haven't we georgina we do so it's a news

review episode we did a while ago and it's all about

how uh training for the premier league was starting again

so take a look at it just click on the link below

okay time now for our next headline so the next headline is from the daily

mail it's quite long so bear with me and it is american noah lyles smashes

usain bolt's 200 meter record before being told he had only 185

meters in a mix-up over using the right starting line with commentator steve

cram left laughing in disbelief

mix up mistake that creates confusion yes so it's about mix hyphen up

and it's made up of two words in this case it has a hyphen between the two

words because it is a noun so it's uh

for example it's a mix-up it's when something confusing happens

and you know uh does this ever happen to you

well you were telling me uh that you are very kind of

precise with certain things for example your

uh your spices when you're cooking you have them in a

distinct order is it alphabetical order yeah they have to be in alphabetical

order and so basically when i'm cooking i just reach

up grab the right spice because i know exactly where they are

and put it into the recipe i'm cooking so if that order is mixed up

then what happens it becomes confusing very very confusing because suddenly i'm

about to pour the wrong spice into into a dish or a you know meal i'm

making that would make it taste very very

i wouldn't like to say disgusting but definitely

interesting so it would be very and it has happened before actually it can be

very confusing yeah okay this can be used as a verb as

well yes it can so um yeah and when it's used

as a verb it's not used with a hyphen so for example uh my friend

came around to cook and she mixed up all my spices

a terrible a terrible thing to happen to you georgina

you must have felt very mixed up

okay let's have a summary

time now for a recap of the vocabulary please georgina

so the first word we looked at was blunder

careless or serious mistake the second one was transpires becomes

apparent and the third one was mix up and it is mistake that creates confusion

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