纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国体育的举国体制改变了吗

Lilibet speaks good English. Her coach is British and amply tattooed. She competed on Tuesday in park skateboarding, an insurgent sport in which the point among the sisterhood of athletes is not just winning a medal but embodying a mantra of female empowerment.

莉莉白能说一口流利的英语。她的教练是一个身上有很多文身的英国人。周二，她参加了公园滑板项目的比赛，这是一项新兴的运动，运动员之间姐妹情谊的意义不仅在于赢得奖牌，还体现了女性赋权的口号。

Lilibet is just a nickname. Her full name is Zheng Haohao, and at 11 she is the youngest athlete at these Games. She is also the new face of a Chinese sports-industrial complex that for decades has harnessed tens of thousands of small children in hopes of forging a tiny fraction of them into Olympic champions.

莉莉白只是个昵称。她的全名是郑好好，11岁的她是本届奥运会上最年轻的运动员。她也是中国体育产业的新面孔，几十年来，这个产业控制着成千上万的孩子，希望将其中的一小部分培养成奥运冠军。

Yet Lilibet’s debut, along with those of a few other Chinese Olympians, has come in large part because she has grown up outside the state’s full embrace.

然而，莉莉白以及另外几位中国奥运选手的首次亮相在很大程度上要归因于她并非来自举国体制的培养。

“I don’t want to put any pressure on myself,” Lilibet wrote on Chinese social media before her competition. “I just want to show my best in Paris.”

“我不想给自己任何压力，”比赛前，莉莉白在中国的社交媒体上写道。“我想在巴黎展现最好的自己。”

Lilibet’s carefree attitude, an energy tonic for Chinese fans at these Games, has prompted questions of whether it’s worth pushing Chinese athletes so hard for national glory.

在这届奥运会上，莉莉白的这种松弛感对中国球迷来说可谓一碗清补凉，但也引发了人们的质疑——为了国家荣誉而如此逼迫中国运动员，是否值得？

In Paris, China is once again locked in a gold medal race with the United States — a contest that probably means more to Beijing than to Washington. As expected, its sports machine has delivered victories in diving, badminton, gymnastics and shooting, among other pursuits, though its swimmers competed under a shadow of suspicion because of failed drug tests at previous events. The coming days most likely will bring more golds, in weight lifting.

在巴黎奥运会上，中国再次与美国展开了金牌大战——这场比赛对北京的意义可能大于对华盛顿的意义。不出所料，中国的体育机器在跳水、羽毛球、体操和射击等项目上取得了胜利，尽管它的游泳运动员在之前的比赛中因未通过药检而受到怀疑。在接下来的几天里，举重项目还有可能给中国带来更多金牌。

On Saturday, China won gold and silver in the women’s table tennis singles. It was a predictable spectacle of athletic domination — China has won every gold in the event and five consecutive silvers, too — but the day’s last act was one of the most jarring displays at these Olympics, as Chinese fans rebelled against the eventual victor.

周六，中国在女子乒乓球单打项目中获得金银牌。这是一场意料之中的独大奇观——中国包揽了该项目的全部金牌，还包括五枚银牌——但当天的最后一幕却是这届奥运会上最不和谐的场景之一，最终的获胜者遭到了中国球迷的反对。

National Effort

举国体制

Ever since Chairman Mao Zedong decreed that his new People’s Republic develop its muscle, China has taken sports seriously. After the nation’s nearly three-decade absence from the Summer Olympics, Chinese officials mimicked the Soviet Union and set up thousands of state-run sports schools to cultivate champions, and returned to the Games in 1984.

自从毛泽东宣布新中国要发展体育运动以来，中国一直很重视体育。在缺席夏季奥运会近30年后，中国官员模仿苏联，办起了数千所体校来培养冠军，并于1984年重返奥运会。

Beijing’s gold medal strategy long depended on a mastery of sports like table tennis and diving, as well as a mining of medals in disciplines offering multiple categories and weight classes, like weight lifting and shooting.

长期以来，北京的金牌战略依赖于在乒乓球和跳水等项目上的优势地位，以及在举重和射击等多个类别和重量级别的项目中争夺奖牌。

Chinese athletes enjoyed careers fully subsidized by the state, but they had to hew to a long list of noes: no dating, no living at home, no normal school. At the 2012 London Games, one diver was not told that her grandparents had died or that her mother had been ill until after her competition. She won gold.

中国运动员的职业生涯完全由国家资助，但他们必须遵守一长串禁令：不允许谈恋爱、不允许住在家里、不能上普通学校。在2012年伦敦奥运会上，一名跳水运动员直到比赛结束才得知祖父母已去世，她的母亲患有重病。她赢得了金牌。

China, though, has changed a lot since it began churning out champions. Middle-class parents are no longer willing to give up their only children to the state sports system. Athletes are demanding more autonomy and a bigger cut of their earnings. More fundamentally, the state has expanded its definition of sport from an elite preserve of champions to a source of wellness for the masses.

然而，自从中国开始大量培养冠军以来，这个国家已经发生了很大的变化。中产阶级父母不再愿意把独生子女交给国家体育系统。运动员们要求更多的自主权和更大的收入分成。更根本的是，国家已经改变了对体育的定义，从冠军的精英专属领域扩大到了大众健康的来源。

Lilibet was the kind of child who pinged around like an electron eager to charge a current. Four years ago, her family gave her a skateboard as a diversion, not as any instrument of patriotism. (She is also fond of painting and chess.) As her skills expanded, her mother, multilingual and well-traveled, took Lilibet on tour to three continents.

莉莉白是那种精力充沛、停不下来的孩子。四年前，她的家人给了她一个滑板作为消遣，而不是作为什么爱国主义的工具。（她还喜欢绘画和国际象棋。）随着水平越来越高，她那位周游世界、会说多种语言的母亲带着她去三大洲各地参加比赛。

Even as she trained, Lilibet continued to live at home. She learned English, and her posts on Instagram, which is blocked in China by state censors, praise her fellow skateboarders with the hashtag #girlscanskate. “Speed is your friend,” she wrote in one post. In another, she showed off her earnings from a national competition and admitted she didn’t know exactly how taxes worked.

即使在训练期间，莉莉白仍然跟家人住在一起。她学习英语，并在中国屏蔽的Instagram上发贴，用“#girlscanskate”这样的标签称赞其他的滑板爱好者。“速度是你的朋友，”她在一篇帖子中写道。在另一篇帖子中，她展示了自己在一个全国比赛中的收入，并承认自己还不是太清楚要如何缴税。

In the run up to the park competition on Tuesday, Lilibet mixed easily with the other competitors, most of whom, given the lack of an age minimum, are minors. The girls giggled and vogued.

在周二的公园滑板项目比赛前，莉莉白与其他选手悠闲地混在一起，由于没有最低年龄限制，其中大多数是未成年人。姑娘们嬉笑打闹。

“She’s cool, and I like her style,” said Chen Yifan, a Chinese teenager watching Lilibet train. “She is having fun.”

“她很酷，我喜欢她的风格，”正在看莉莉白训练的一个中国少年陈一凡（音）说。“她玩得很开心。”

It’s about more than fun. A strong sense of self is fundamental to the sport.

这不仅仅是为了乐趣。强烈的自我意识是这项运动的基础。

“I’ve had conversations with the Chinese, who were asking, because this is a new sport, ‘What should we do to become good?’” said Luca Basilico, the skateboarding director for World Skate, which runs the Olympic competition. “And I tell them: ‘Send them abroad. Let them travel and absorb. And then they will come up with their own style and artistry.’”

“我与中国人聊过，他们问，由于这是项新运动，‘我们该怎么做才能成为好手？’”世界滑板组织的滑板总监卢卡·巴西利科表示，该组织负责该项目的奥运赛事。“我告诉他们：‘送他们出国。让他们旅游，吸收经验。然后他们就会形成自己的风格和艺术特性。’”

That advice applies to other sports, too. On Saturday, in front of a spirited crowd of Chinese supporters, Zheng Qinwen (no relation to Zheng Haohao, or Lilibet) won gold in tennis in women’s singles. Although she was deposited by her father at a state sports academy at age 7, leaving her struggling with homesickness for years, Zheng eventually relocated to Spain with her mother.

这个建议也适用于其他运动。上周六，在一群热情的中国支持者面前，郑钦文赢得了网球女单金牌。虽然她在7岁时就被父亲送到了一所国家办的体育学校，让她在多年时间里饱受想家之苦，但最后，她跟母亲一起搬到了西班牙。

It was a liberty unavailable to an earlier crop of Chinese tennis players, who could not leave the country for training and were required to hand over much of their endorsement money to the state. Chinese women’s tennis was also shaken in 2021 when Peng Shuai, once a top doubles player, accused a former top Communist Party official of sexual assault. Peng quickly withdrew her allegation and disappeared for a time from public view, leading to a global human rights campaign asking, “Where is Peng Shuai?”

这是早期中国网球运动员所没有的自由，他们不能出国接受训练，还必须将大部分代言费上缴国家。2021年，曾经是顶尖双打运动员的彭帅指控一名前中共高官性侵，中国女子网球也因此受到震动。彭帅很快撤回了指控，并一度从公众视野中消失，引发了一场全球性的人权运动，人们纷纷询问：“彭帅在哪里？”

Today, the rules limiting Chinese Olympians have loosened. There are fewer state media diatribes against athletes’ dating teammates or admonitions against personal ambition. Still, the easygoing atmosphere of skateboarding, with a Chinese Olympian chilling with headphones and baggy pants, is a world away from what unfolded on Saturday when two other Chinese women battled it out for gold in table tennis.

如今，对中国奥运选手的限制规定已有所放松。官方媒体对运动员与队友谈恋爱的责难，或对个人野心的告诫都减少了。不过，滑板比赛的轻松氛围，以及戴着耳机、穿着宽松裤子的中国奥运选手形象与上周六另外两名中国女运动员在乒乓球比赛中争夺金牌的场面相比，有着天壤之别。

Playing Favorites

操弄选手

In that final, Sun Yingsha, the reigning world champion, faced off against Chen Meng, the world No. 4.

在那场决赛中，世界冠军孙颖莎对阵世界排名第四的陈梦。

Chen was the defending Olympic champion, but for months, China’s state media had pumped up Sun as the young, humble exemplar of a table tennis-mad nation. Ad campaigns promoted her face. “Sun Yingsha is not tall, having short hair and a round face,” enthused one provincial newspaper. “She is cute and adorable. Everyone loves her.”

陈梦是奥运卫冕冠军，但几个月来，在这个热爱乒乓球的国家，官方媒体一直把孙颖莎宣传为年轻、谦逊的典范。她的面孔频频出现在广告上。“孙颖莎个子不算太高，留着一头短发，圆圆的脸蛋，”一家省级报纸热情地写道。“极具亲和力和感染力。”

At the same time, the way in which Chen qualified for Paris led to simmering speculation that one reason she had been chosen was to provide Sun an easier time in the final. (Given China’s dominance of the sport, it was viewed as a foregone conclusion that they would play for the gold and silver.)

与此同时，陈梦入选巴黎奥运的方式引发了猜测，认为她被选中的原因之一是让孙颖莎在决赛中更轻松。（鉴于中国在这项运动中的主导地位，人们认为金银牌肯定是在她们之间产生。）

Machinations within a national team might seem to be an internal matter. But Chen qualified for these Olympics under parameters that had been recently revised and after higher-ranked teammates had suffered losses so surprising that they raised the specter of match manipulation. There are also persistent doubts about Chen’s age. Under sporting federation and Chinese regulations, proof of age or match manipulation should have precluded her from participating in these Games.

国家队内部的小动作似乎是内部事务。但陈梦是在前不久才经修改的规则下获得奥运会参赛资格的，而在此之前，排名更高的队友遭遇了令人惊讶的失利，这引发了对操纵比赛的怀疑。陈梦的年龄也一直存在疑问。根据国际体育联合会和中国的规定，如果有修改年龄或操纵比赛的证据，应该会使她无法参加本届奥运会。

There is no firm evidence that any matches that led to Chen’s selection for Paris were rigged. But Chinese sports have long been linked to such transgressions.

目前没有确凿的证据表明导致陈梦入选巴黎的比赛受到了操纵。但长期以来，中国体育一直与此类违规行为联系在一起。

Chinese athletes have said that they were ordered to throw table tennis matches, either to allow a favored player to advance or to shape the draw for an easier tournament. One star claimed that she once defied a diktat to deliberately lose, costing her a spot in the Olympics. She emigrated to Japan, and later represented her adopted country in the 1996 and 2000 Games.

中国乒乓球运动员表示，他们曾被命令在比赛中让球，要么是为了被看好的选手晋级，要么是为了让抽签更有利。一位明星球员声称，她曾经违抗故意输掉比赛的命令，结果失去了参加奥运会的机会。她移民到日本，后来代表日本参加了1996年和2000年的奥运会。

Chen told The New York Times that she began training in table tennis at about 5 ½ years old because the sport seemed “cute.” But in her home province of Shandong, in eastern China, table tennis was practically a blood sport. Entire academies dedicated themselves to training children.

陈梦告诉《纽约时报》，她在大约五岁半的时候开始接受乒乓球训练，因为这项运动“很可爱”。但在她的家乡、中国东部的山东省，乒乓球几乎是一项严酷的运动。所有乒乓球学校都竭力培训儿童球员。

Former participants in Shandong table tennis, including players and a trainer, say that to boost the provincial team’s competitiveness and to enjoy enhanced central government funding, local officials routinely falsified children’s ages to make them seem younger and therefore more talented. The Chinese Table Tennis Association tried to fight back by analyzing children’s bones to gauge their real age.

包括运动员和教练在内的前山东乒乓球圈内人士表示，为了提高省队的竞争力，并享受中央政府的更多资助，地方官员经常伪造孩子的年龄，让他们看起来年纪更小，因而更有天赋。中国乒乓球协会则试图通过分析儿童骨龄来判断他们的真实年龄，以此反击造假行动。

Chen’s birth date, according to her Olympic biography, is Jan. 15, 1994, making her 30. But in 2012, she shared posts on her social media account, written on June 15, wishing her a happy birthday. Those social media posts did not specify her year of birth. An article about Chen in Shandong news media published a photo from 1997 at the table tennis school she first attended.

根据陈梦的奥运小传，她的出生日期是1994年1月15日，也就是30岁。但在2012年6月15日，她在自己的社交媒体账户上转发了祝她生日快乐的帖子。这些社交媒体帖子没有具体说明她的出生年份。山东新闻媒体一篇关于她的文章刊登了一张1997年她第一次来到乒乓球学校的照片。

If she started training at five and a half years old, she would now be 32, not 30, as her biography states. Documentation from events she attended as a little girl in New Zealand and China would make her 32, too.

如果她从五岁半开始训练，那么她现在应该是32岁，而不是小传中所说的30岁。根据她小时候在新西兰和中国参加活动的记录，她也应该是32岁。

Table tennis players and trainers from Shandong, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears of reprisal, say that athletes usually have a “Ping-Pong age” and a real age. Two players who trained with Chen’s coach told a researcher that their ages were falsified when they were small.

来自山东的乒乓球运动员和教练说，运动员通常有一个“乒乓年龄”和一个真正的年龄。由于担心遭到报复，他们要求匿名。两名曾经跟随陈梦的教练训练的球员告诉一名研究人员，他们的年龄在小时候就改了。

The difference might not matter now, but age manipulation breaks Chinese rules, which were tightened after high-profile international scandals. In 2010, a decade after the Sydney Games, the Chinese women’s gymnastics team that won bronze there was stripped of its medal because one of its athletes had entered the competition as a 16-year-old when she was actually two years underage.

现在看来，这种差别可能并不重要，但操纵年龄违反了中国的规定。在发生了备受瞩目的国际丑闻后，中国的规定变得更加严格。2010年，也就是悉尼奥运会10年后，获得铜牌的中国女子体操队被剥夺了奖牌，原因是其中一名运动员参赛时称自己16岁，而实际年龄要小两岁。

When asked about her correct birth date, Chen told The Times: “What the official record says is the most accurate.”

当被问及准确出生日期时，陈梦告诉时报：“官方记录是准确的。”

The match on Saturday between Chen and Sun began in equipoise. Each player claimed a game. But Chen’s spinning shots struck with hairbreadth precision. Sun’s points, decreasing as the match progressed, were met with approving roars from the Chinese fans. By the time Chen had prevailed to defend her Olympic gold, the Chinese table tennis delegation sitting in the stands gazed out, sullen and unsmiling. The message seemed clear: The wrong Chinese player had won.

周六，陈梦和孙颖莎的比赛开始时，两人势均力敌。双方各赢一局。但是陈梦的旋转球打得非常精准。随着比赛的进行，孙颖莎的得分机会越来越少，但中国球迷却对她报以支持的高呼。当陈梦战胜对手卫冕奥运金牌时，坐在看台上的中国乒乓球代表团成员们显得神情冷漠、闷闷不乐、不苟言笑。传递的信息似乎很明确：错误的中国选手赢得了比赛。

Fans primed to support Sun expressed their outrage online. By the next day, China’s social media platform, Weibo, announced that more than 300 accounts had been suspended for spreading “malicious speculation” about the match and 12,000 “pieces of illegal content” had been deleted. On Tuesday, Beijing authorities said a woman had been arrested in connection with her table tennis posts.

支持孙颖莎的粉丝在网上表达了愤怒。次日，中国社交媒体平台微博宣布，300多个账号因传播有关这场比赛的“恶意猜测”而被封，1.2万条“非法内容”被删除。周二，北京当局表示，一名女子被捕，原因与她发布的乒乓球帖子有关。

At a news conference after the match, members of the Chinese news media asked Chen a few perfunctory questions, then lapsed into silence. She walked away a repeat singles gold medalist, but grim and alone.

在比赛结束后的新闻发布会上，中国新闻媒体敷衍地向陈梦问了几个问题，然后陷入沉默。她蝉联了单打金牌，却表情严肃地独自离去。

Generation Next

下一代

Three days later, at the Olympic skateboarding preliminaries, Lilibet strapped on her helmet and kneepads. A few days before, in training, she had soared through the air, the Eiffel Tower in the distance, and returned to earth face first. “Kissing the ground,” skateboarders call it.

三天后，在奥运会滑板预赛上，莉莉白戴上了头盔和护膝。几天前的训练中，她跃到空中，远处是埃菲尔铁塔，然后脸朝下摔回地面。滑板爱好者称之为“亲吻地面”。

Her first official run in the Olympics was cautious. In her second and third runs, she took on more speed and lost control.

她在奥运会上的第一次正式比赛中表现谨慎。在第二轮和第三轮比赛中，她加快了速度，失去了控制。

She was hardly the only one. In Lilibet’s heat, seven runs in a row ended with missed tricks. A 15-year-old French girl broke down in tears. Lilibet told her coach, Danny Wainwright of Britain, that her Olympic debut was “no good.” She finished 18th out of 22 competitors.

她并不是唯一一个失误的运动员。在莉莉白之后，连续七人最后都出现了失误。一名15岁的法国女孩泪流满面。莉莉白对她的教练、来自英国的丹尼·温赖特说，她的奥运首秀“不好”。她在22名竞争者中排名第18位。

But half an hour later, her cheek still scratched and bruised from her fall in training, Lilibet was grinning again as she described what had brought her to Paris.

但在半小时后，莉莉白在描述自己来到巴黎的原因时又露出了笑容，由于在训练中摔倒，她的脸颊上仍然带着伤痕和淤青。

“I was like, oh, skateboarding that’s so cool,” she said in perfect preteen English. “And I got to come to the Olympics and see all my friends.”

“我觉得，哦，滑板太酷了，”她用流利的、青春期前的孩子说的那种英语说。“我能来参加奥运会，还能见到我所有的朋友。”