Every Saturday morning, at 9 a.m., more than 50,000 runners set off to run 5 km around their local park. The Parkrun phenomenon began with a dozen friends and has inspired 400 events in the UK and more abroad. Events are free, staffed by thousands of volunteers. Runners range from four years old to grandparents; their times range from Andrew Baddeley’s world record 13 minutes 48 seconds up to an hour.

    Parkrun is succeeding where London’s Olympic “legacy” is failing. Ten years ago on Monday, it was announced that the Games of the 30th Olympiad would be in London. Planning documents pledged that the great legacy of the Games would be to lever a nation of sport lovers away from their couches. The population would be fitter, healthier and produce more winners. It has not happened. The number of adults doing weekly sport did rise, by nearly 2 million in the run-up to 2012—but the general population was growing faster. Worse, the numbers are now falling at an accelerating rate. The opposition claims primary school pupils doing at least two hours of sport a week have nearly halved. Obesity has risen among adults and children. Official retrospections continue as to why London 2012 failed to “inspire a generation”. The success of Parkrun offers answers.

    Parkun is not a race but a time trial: your only competitor is the clock. The ethos welcomes anybody. There is as much joy over a puffed-out first-timer being clapped over the line as there is about top talent shining. The Olympic bidders, by contrast, wanted to get more people doing sports and to produce more elite athletes. The dual aim was mixed up: The stress on success over taking part was intimidating for newcomers.

    Indeed, there is something a little absurd in the state getting involved in the planning of such a fundamentally “grassroots” concept as community sports associations. If there is a role for government, it should really be getting involved in providing common goods—making sure there is space for playing fields and the money to pave tennis and netball courts, and encouraging the provision of all these activities in schools. But successive governments have presided over selling green spaces, squeezing money from local authorities and declining attention on sport in education. Instead of wordy, worthy strategies, future governments need to do more to provide the conditions for sport to thrive. Or at least not make them worse.

答案精析：根据题干中的Paragraph 1和Parkrun可定位至文章首段。根据第一段可知，“公园跑”参加人数有五万多人，英国有400个类似的项目，最后一句提及参与“公园跑”的人涉及各个年龄阶段。由此可知，“公园跑”的参与人数多，涉及各个年龄阶段，普及程度很高，故选择A项。

错项排除：文章提及公园跑活动的工作人员由数千名志愿者组成，而B项则是对文章信息的误读，因此排除B项。文章在最后一段出现了community，但没有具体说明跑步对社区的影响，故排除C项。文章第二段出现official，但并未提到这是一个官方的节日，并且文章提及参与人数多，老少皆有，说明活动是民间的，因此排除D项。