纽约时报 短跑名将谈奥运(1)

 

 

    The sprinter¹ Allyson Felix has competed in four Olympics, winning more medals in track and field — nine — than any other American woman.

    短跑运动员埃里森·菲利克斯参加了四届奥运会，在田径比赛中获得了九枚奖牌，这比其他任何美国女子运动员都要多。

    Should she make the team for next month's Tokyo Games, which would almost surely be her last, and earn one more medal,如果她能参加下个月的东京奥运会（这几乎肯定是她最后一次参加奥运会），并再赢得一枚奖牌，it would make her the most decorated Olympian female track athlete from any country.

    她将成为所有国家中获得奖牌最多的奥运会女子田径运动员。

    As she has grown older, Felix, who is 35, has also earned increased attention for her work outside the arena².

    随着年龄的增长，35岁的菲利克斯在赛场外的工作也越来越受到关注。

    The difficult birth of her daughter, Camryn, in 2018 caused her to speak out for racial equality in maternal³ health care.

    2018年，她艰难生下女儿卡姆琳，这让她为孕产妇保健方面的种族平等大声疾呼。

    And a 2019 column she wrote for The Times criticizing the maternity⁴ policies of Nike, her sponsor at the time —她在2019年为《泰晤士报》撰写了一篇专栏文章，批评了当时其赞助商耐克的生育政策，which the company subsequently improved — established her as an advocate for women's equality in sports.

    耐克随后对这一政策进行了改进，这使她成为体育界女性平等的倡导者。

    So no matter what happens in Tokyo (or if the Games themselves even happen; they were postponed⁵ from last summer),因此，不管在东京发生什么（或者奥运会本身能否举行；因为原定去年夏天举行的奥运会延期），her future will be full, which isn't to say easy.

    她的未来都将是充实的，这说起来并不容易。

    On the prospect⁶ of her life after sports, she says: "Finding other ways to get the same fulfillment that I get from competition is something that I think about.

    在谈到退役后的生活前景时，她表示，寻找其他方法来获得不同于我在比赛中获得的成就感是我一直在思考的问题。

    I'm not sure what the answer is. I just know that getting to a new normal is going to be a process."我不知道答案是什么。我只知道进入新常态是一个过程。

    Now this is an interview.

    下面我们来看她接受的访问。

    And so the interviewer says, Japan is not exactly in the best place with Covid, and yet it sure looks as if the Olympics are going to happen —采访者问，日本的新冠肺炎疫情形势不太好，但看起来奥运会肯定会举办——probably because there's too much money involved to risk postponing⁷ them again.

    可能是因为涉及的资金太多，不可能再次推迟奥运会。

    Does that make you feel any moral ambivalence⁸ about participating?

    这是否让你对参加奥运会感到道德上的矛盾？

    Response: I would do anything to compete. That's what the Olympics mean to me. That's who I am.

    回答：为了竞争，我愿意做任何事。这就是奥运会对我的意义。这就是我。

    At the same time I understand that a pandemic is going on. We have had so much loss of life, and I don't want to contribute to any more.

    与此同时，我知道疫情正在发生。我们已经失去了很多生命，我不想为死亡人数做贡献。

    So I feel as if I have to be at the mercy of the experts in charge. It's in their hands.

    所以我认为我必须听命于主管专家的安排。一切都掌握在他们手中。

    But I can be very honest: I would be devastated⁹ if the Olympics didn't take place.

    但我可以非常诚实地说：如果奥运会不举行，我会非常伤心。

    Over your career, has your understanding of what the Olympics are about beyond competition — that is, the business side — changed?

    在你的职业生涯中，你对奥运会超越竞争的意义——即商业方面——的理解有没有改变？

    Response: Definitely. When I entered this sport as a teenager, I was very naive¹⁰.

    回答：当然有。我十几岁开始从事这项运动时很天真。

    Then I kind of understood that this is not what I thought it to be as a child. This is a business.

    后来我明白了这不是我小时候想的那样。这是生意。

    I worked on the bid to bring the games to Los Angeles and saw, like, OK, these are the actual decision makers¹¹.

    我参与了洛杉矶申办奥运会的工作，嗯，见到了真正的决策者。

    This is the group that decides where the Olympics goes. Seeing more of how the International Olympic Committee operates, it's not what I thought it was.

    我说的是决定奥运会走向的组织。我还看到了更多国际奥委会的运作方式，与我所想象的并不相同。

    My perspective was that the Games were so much about the competition.

    我的观点是，奥运会与竞赛息息相关。

    Being involved in the bid process, you see that the competition, and the athletes are a very minimal¹² part.

    而参与到申办过程中，你会发现比赛和运动员只是其中非常小的部分。

    The athletes do not have a seat at the table when the decisions are being made.

    在做出决定时，桌子旁边没有运动员的座位。

    Now I get where we fall in the grand scheme of this ginormous thing that makes a ton of money — the athletes don't see that money. It's a big machine.

    现在我明白了，我们参与了一项宏大的计划，这项计划会赚很多钱，但运动员看不到这笔钱。这是一个庞大的组织。

1 sprinter   

n.短跑运动员，短距离全速奔跑者

参考例句：

• He is more a sprinter than a swimmer. 他是短跑健将，而不是游泳选手。 来自辞典例句
• The sprinter himself thinks he can run the race at 9.4 seconds. 这位短跑运动员自认为可以用9.4秒跑完比赛。 来自互联网

2 arena   

n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台

参考例句：

• She entered the political arena at the age of 25. 她25岁进入政界。
• He had not an adequate arena for the exercise of his talents.他没有充分发挥其才能的场所。

3 maternal   

adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的

参考例句：

• He is my maternal uncle.他是我舅舅。
• The sight of the hopeless little boy aroused her maternal instincts.那个绝望的小男孩的模样唤起了她的母性。

4 maternity   

n.母性，母道，妇产科病房；adj.孕妇的，母性的

参考例句：

• Women workers are entitled to maternity leave with full pay.女工产假期间工资照发。
• Trainee nurses have to work for some weeks in maternity.受训的护士必须在产科病房工作数周。

5 postponed   

vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发）

参考例句：

• The trial was postponed indefinitely. 审讯无限期延迟。
• The game has already been postponed three times. 这场比赛已经三度延期了。

6 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

7 postponing   

v.延期，推迟( postpone的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• He tried to gain time by postponing his decision. 他想以迟迟不作决定的手段来争取时间。 来自辞典例句
• I don't hold with the idea of postponing further discussion of the matter. 我不赞成推迟进一步讨论这件事的想法。 来自辞典例句

8 ambivalence   

n.矛盾心理

参考例句：

• She viewed her daughter's education with ambivalence.她看待女儿的教育问题态度矛盾。
• She felt a certain ambivalence towards him.她对他的态度有些矛盾。

9 devastated   

v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的

参考例句：

• The bomb devastated much of the old part of the city. 这颗炸弹炸毁了旧城的一大片地方。
• His family is absolutely devastated. 他的一家感到极为震惊。

10 naive   

adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的

参考例句：

• It's naive of you to believe he'll do what he says.相信他会言行一致，你未免太单纯了。
• Don't be naive.The matter is not so simple.你别傻乎乎的。事情没有那么简单。

11 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 minimal   

adj.尽可能少的，最小的

参考例句：

• They referred to this kind of art as minimal art.他们把这种艺术叫微型艺术。
• I stayed with friends, so my expenses were minimal.我住在朋友家，所以我的花费很小。