东京奥运赛场上的坚韧与风度
Tokyo Olympians Are Showing That Grit Can Be Graceful
KURT STREETER
2021年8月6日
For all the controversy, for all the well-founded worry over hosting the Summer Games amid a pandemic that has killed four million globally and is currently lashing Japan, Olympic athletes have delivered again and again.
尽管存在种种争议，尽管在一场已经导致全球400万人死亡、目前正肆虐日本的大流行中，人们对举办夏季奥运会有充分的理由感到担忧，但奥运选手们还是带来了一次又一次精彩表现。
I’m not talking only about medal counts and world records here. I’m talking about something more profound. I’m talking about resilience, tenacious fortitude and even kindness under pressure.
我说的不仅仅是奖牌数和世界纪录。我说的是更深层的东西。我说的是压力之下展现出的坚韧、毅力甚至还有仁慈。
All are forms of athletic grace. In Tokyo over the last week and a half, the examples kept multiplying.
所有这些都代表了体育的风度。在过去一周半的东京，这样的例子数不胜数。
The grace of Simone Biles, bold as she came back to the fray, winning a bronze medal on the balance beam days after pulling out of the team gymnastics competition to guard her mental, emotional and physical health.
西蒙·拜尔斯(Simone Biles)的风度在于，她勇敢地回到赛场拿下平衡木项目的铜牌，而就在前几天，她才为保护自己的心理、情绪和身体健康退出了体操团体赛。
The grace of the Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan, stumbling and sprawling on the track during her heat of the women’s 1,500 meters, then lifting herself and striding from far behind to catch the other runners, passing them all to finish first.
荷兰选手西凡·哈桑(Sifan Hassan)的风度在于，她在女子1500米预赛的激烈争夺中被绊倒在地，随后又站了起来，从远落后于其他选手的位置大步赶上，超越了所有人，夺得第一名。
The grace in how athletes have pulled together in Tokyo, encouraged to do so because during the pandemic they leaned on others more than ever before. One example among many: the Norwegian triathlete Lotte Miller consoling Belgium’s Claire Michel, as Michel sobbed in the moments after finishing last.
风度是选手们在东京同心协力，他们愿意这样做，因为在疫情期间，他们比以往任何时候都需要依靠彼此。其中一个例子：挪威铁人三项选手洛蒂·米勒(Lotte Miller)安慰比利时选手克莱尔·米歇尔(Claire Michel)，当时米歇尔正因为拿到最后一名伤心哭泣。
The grace in how athletes made it through the pandemic, their elite-level training disrupted. In Tokyo, there are countless stories of how they stayed in shape and kept their form.
风度是选手们在疫情中坚持下去，即使他们的高水平训练被打乱。在东京，有无数关于他们如何保持身材和状态的轶事。
Think of the weight lifter Hidilyn Diaz. She spent months stuck in Malaysia because of the pandemic, freelancing her training, building her own gym and working on weight sets she fashioned out of bamboo sticks and jugs of water.
就拿伊迪琳·迪亚斯(Hidilyn Diaz)来说，因为疫情，她在马来西亚滞留数月，在没有指导的情况下训练，打造了自己的健身室，用竹竿和水罐做举重练习。
In Tokyo last week, Diaz became the first athlete to win a gold medal for the Philippines.
上周在东京，迪亚斯成了首位为菲律宾赢得金牌的选手。
She personified resilience, a description the International Olympic Committee has often applied to these Summer Games, as they went forward in a time of plague. Yet the I.O.C.’s effort to preserve the Olympics lacked grace.
她诠释了何谓坚韧，国际奥委会总用这个词来描述本届夏奥会，因为这是疫情时期仍在进行的比赛。然而，国际奥委会自己保护奥运会的努力却不那么有风度。
After the Games were delayed a year, polls consistently showed that most Japanese citizens wanted them to be postponed again or canceled. Many feared the threat of the virus and of the new variants that could be brought in by the roughly 40,000 visitors, including athletes, support staff and the news media.
在已经推迟一年之后，民意调查一直显示，大多数日本公民希望奥运会再次推迟或者取消。许多人担心病毒威胁，以及包括选手、后勤人员和新闻媒体在内的约4万名来访者可能带来的新变异毒株。
That alarm has proved justified. The island nation is so burdened by the coronavirus now that much of the country is in a state of emergency. This week, new cases in Tokyo reached record highs.
事实证明，警惕是对的。这个岛国因新冠背上了沉重负担，现在大部分地区都已进入紧急状态。本周，东京的新增感染人数达到了历史新高。
Meantime, the athletes live as if in a federal witness protection program. They shuttle from the Olympic Village or an officially sanctioned hotel to their athletic venues and back, their movements tightly monitored, their health status constantly probed. They are never far from a coronavirus test.
与此同时，选手们仿佛都身处联邦证人保护计划之中。他们只能在奥运村或是官方认可的酒店以及比赛场馆之间往返，活动受到严密监控，健康状况不断遭到探查。他们随时都可能需要进行一次新冠病毒检测。
Few complain.
很少有人抱怨。
The Games represent the pinnacle for most of them, something dreamed about for years. Olympic dreams usually include visions of performing under ideal conditions in front of boisterous crowds.
奥运会代表了大部分选手的巅峰，是他们多年来的梦想。奥林匹克之梦，通常包含了在理想条件下在欢腾的人群面前比赛的愿景。
Ideal conditions? Olympic organizers were determined to put on their show in the middle of the sweltering Japanese summer to drive up TV ratings. If the Games had been held in the fall, as they were when Tokyo hosted in 1964, they would have faced far more competition for viewers. Nevertheless, there has been plummeting viewership for these truly Summer Games, as athletes have been forced to perform in a furnace.
理想条件？为了提高收视率，主办方决定在日本的酷暑中上演这场大秀。如果像1964年东京奥运会那样放在秋天举办，他们将面临更多的收视竞争。结果，这些真正意义上的夏季奥运会比赛收视率直线下降，而选手们被迫要在火炉一样的天气中比赛。
And the boisterous crowds? That possibility vanished weeks ago. At many of the open-air events, the most consistent background noise comes from flocks of cicadas.
那么欢腾的人群呢？观赛的可能性几周前就彻底消失了。在许多户外赛事里，最持久的背景音来自成群的蝉。
And yet the I.O.C. brags about the show it is putting on. Criticism? What criticism? “All that is behind us,” Nenad Lalovic, an I.O.C. board member, said this week. “Nothing,” he added, “can stop us anymore.”
然而，国际奥委会还在吹嘘他们献上的表演。批评？哪有什么批评？“那些都过去了，”国际奥委会执行委员会成员内纳德·拉洛维奇(Nenad Lalovic)本周表示。“没什么事可以阻止我们了，”他还说道。
Forget about the spike in virus cases among Japanese citizens and those tied to athletes and Olympic staff members since the Games began. And about the epidemiologists who worry that the true effect of these Olympics on the pandemic may not be known until well after everyone has gone home.
忘记奥运会开始后日本公民以及与选手和奥运工作人员相关的病毒感染激增吧。也忘记流行病学家的担忧吧，即这届奥运会对疫情的真正影响，可能要到所有人回国很久以后才能显露。
At least we have the athletes to revel in and learn from.
至少还有这些选手值得我们欢呼和学习。
I’m thinking of the determination of the runner Christine Mboma, banned from the 400-meter race, her best event, because she has a rare genetic condition that results in elevated testosterone levels. Undaunted, Mboma ran the 200 meters and won a silver medal.
我想起了田径选手克里斯汀·姆博马(Christine Mboma)的决心，因为患有一种罕见的遗传疾病导致睾酮水平升高，她被禁止参加她最擅长的400米项目。姆博马毫不气馁，她参加了200米项目，并拿下了银牌。
I’m thinking of the high jumpers Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy. They chose to forgo a jumpoff that could have decided the competition and to share Olympic gold instead. They knew full well they would be blasted by those who claim that there must always be a single winner, that sharing is weak and — even worse — unmanly.
我想起了卡塔尔的穆塔兹·艾萨·巴希姆(Mutaz Essa Barshim)和意大利的詹马尔科·坦贝里(Gianmarco Tamberi)。这两位跳高选手放弃进行原本可以决定比赛胜负的对决，而是分享了奥运金牌。他们很清楚，自己会受到抨击，那些人会声称赢家永远只有一个，分享代表软弱以及——更糟糕的是——缺乏男子气概。
But Barshim and Tamberi embraced their tie and each other. They showed no doubt about what they valued most.
但巴希姆和坦贝里接受了平局，拥抱了彼此。他们对自己最珍视的东西毫不动摇。
Neither did Raven Saunders, as proud and charismatic an athlete as there is in Tokyo, with her Hulk masks and her gyrating celebrations and her willingness to stand up for what she believes.
瑞雯·桑德斯(Raven Saunders)也是如此，她与来东京的任何一位选手一样自豪且魅力十足，这份魅力来自她的绿巨人面具，她的旋转庆祝动作，还有她对自身信念的坚持。
After winning a silver medal in the shot put, she defied the I.O.C.’s ban on athletes’ protesting and raised her arms in the form of an X while on the medal stand.
在拿下铅球银牌后，她不顾国际奥委会禁止选手抗议的规定，在领奖台上举起手臂交叉成“X”状。
“I’m a Black female, I’m queer, and I talk about mental health awareness,” she told an NBC reporter, explaining the meaning of the X. “I deal with depression, anxiety and PTSD, a lot. I represent being at that intersection.”
“我是黑人女性，我是酷儿，我会谈论心理健康意识，”她在向NBC记者解释“X”手势的含义时说。“我遭遇过抑郁、焦虑和创伤后应激障碍，我遭遇过很多。我代表了处于那个交叉点的人。”
The symbol, she said, was for the oppressed.
她说，那个符号是为了支持受压迫者。
Then, days after winning silver, Saunders sustained a terrible loss: Her mother died.
然而，在获得银牌的几天后，桑德斯就承受了亡故之悲：她的母亲去世了。
The I.O.C.’s response?
国际奥委会的回应是什么呢？
Instead of dropping any effort to penalize her, the organization that lords over global sports said it would simply press pause before deciding whether to discipline Saunders for her display.
这一管辖着全球体育界的机构表示，他们暂时不会就是否对桑德斯的行为进行处罚做出决定，而不是放弃任何处罚她的努力。
The Olympic organizers need to get with it. Saunders already showed she was not about to bow to their silly rules.
奥运会主办方真得接受现实了。桑德斯已经表明，她不会屈从于他们愚蠢的规则。
Like so many other athletes in Tokyo, she has too much resilience, too much grace.
就像在东京的许多其他选手一样，她太过坚韧，也太有风度了。
