SAT写作素材38：Marathon boy

　　SAT写作素材38：Marathon boy

　　Marathon boy, four, runs into storm of exploitation claims

　　For his armies of cheering fans in Indias slums, he is a small but nimble miracle, destined to run his way into history as one of the worlds greatest athletes.

　　Budhia Singh, a four-year-old urchin, can complete a 26-mile marathon faster than many runners who are twice his height and many times his age.

　　But just as fame and fortune beckon - and a trip to Britain to star in a television documentary - doctors who have examined the child phenomenon have laid down an early finishing line to his career.

　　Alarmed at television footage of him collapsing in the final stages of a record-breaking 43-mile run, Indian health officials ordered police to take him into hospital on Friday for tests to see if the intense exercise was damaging his young body.

　　Results delivered yesterday confirmed those fears - with doctors warning that he will soon be a physical wreck.

　　Making a child this age run marathons on a regular basis will lead to him being physically burnt out in a few years, said Dr Manabendra Bhattacharya of the Sports Authority of India, who discovered that Budhia had abnormally high pulse and blood pressure readings. Its not desirable to submit such a young body to so much stress and strain. Those who think theyre doing the child a service by promoting him to run such long distances are causing him terrible damage.

　　Budhia - hailed as the worlds youngest marathon runner, although he has no birth certificate to prove his age - is now the subject of a legal wrangle between the state authorities and his coach, who stands accused of exploiting and maltreating the boy.

　　The controversy is being played out amid huge media interest in the boys story, a tale of rags to riches that has transfixed the Indian public. The son of an illiterate dishwasher mother and an alcoholic beggar father, Budhia was sold for 800 rupees to a street hawker after his father died three years ago.

　　His physical stamina was spotted by a judo coach, Biranchi Das, who caught him bullying another child near his club one day and ordered him to him run round an athletics track as a punishment. When he returned five hours later, expecting the child to be long gone, he found him still doing laps.

　　Since then Mr Das, who claims to have legally adopted him, has been training him up, feeding him a high-protein diet of meat, eggs, milk and soya beans. He runs up to 20 miles every second day, and has taken part in six big races, bringing offers of lucrative sponsorship deals, according to Mr Das.