E-Matura | LiC | Multiple Choice | B1 | Cook’s way to success

Even as a tiny baby, Charlie Cook loved water. However, his swimming career really began (0) withinatduring the age of six,

when he (1) is being taughtwas taughtlearnedwas learned to swim by his grandfather.

Grandpa Harry regularly (2) lookedmetcollectedpicked Charlie up from school

and took him to the local pool to pass the time until his parents (3) will gethave gotgotget back from work.

Charlie’s grandfather had always been a keen swimmer himself, (4) butsothensince even he was surprised when Charlie started expressing an interest in learning different strokes.

Long before his eighth birthday, Charlie had lost interest in splashing around in the water with the other children of his age. Instead he insisted on his grandfather timing him (5) duringwhileand evereven as he swam as fast as he could from one end of the pool to the other, trying his hardest to break his own records.

In a few years, Charlie was already taking (6) partplaceinteresttime very successfully in competitions.

It was obvious that with the right training he had the potential to (7) getdevelopbecometurn a world-class swimmer.

When Charlie was twelve, he and his parents had to make a very (8) suitablerightfinalimportant decision.

If Charlie was to achieve what he was quite clearly capable of achieving, he would have to move to the USA, where the best training opportunities (9) acrossoverinon the world were to be found.

Charlie himself was convinced that this was the right path for him to take. His father was not really in favour of the idea as he believed Charlie’s education might suffer as a (10) conditionreasonfollowingresult .

However, his mother and grandfather were behind him all the way, and with their support Charlie managed to persuade his father that competitive swimming meant more to him than (11) anythingnothinganother thingsomething else in life. Since 2017 Charlie has been training under the supervision of two of America’s top coaches and recently set a new personal best in the 200 metres free-style. We wish Charlie all the best for the 2024 Olympics.