官方译者精析：英国奥运背后的另类“举国体制” | 加入学习社区

• 本次选取的文章来自《经济学人》的“书籍与艺术”（Books and arts）栏目，是一篇书评。书评首先会介绍一本书的写作背景和观点，再对这本书的观点、写作手法及文字质量等作出评论。多数时候，这些评价都是正面的，但有时书评作者也会不留情面地予以批评。

  
  

• 这篇书评提到的《人才实验室》（The Talent Lab）介绍了英国在奥运会取得的成就。从前英国在这一赛事上表现不佳，但自从借鉴了东德的做法采取“举国体制”，将资源集中在能拿奖牌的项目之后，英国在伦敦及里约奥运会中都取得了优异的成绩，在里约奥运会金牌榜上的排名甚至超过了中国。

  
  

• 中国的举国体制向来引人诟病。但从这本书中我们可以看到，其实英国也相当重视金牌带来的国家自豪感。在这本书中，采取高效的手段获取金牌也是作为一件正面的事情来描述的。不过作者也对这种做法提出了批评，指出以这种方式获得金牌，代价未免太高昂。在我们思考同样的问题时，从这本书可以得到宝贵的经验。

译者解析试读

Britain’s Olympic athletes

What price victory?

Big money and ideas from musicians, soldiers and private-equity gurus are behind major medal hauls

标题分析：《经济学人》一向喜欢化用已有的书名、电影名称等。这篇文章的标题便是来自上世纪80年代的一部电影，以及后面出现的一些同名书籍。

IT SEEMS hardly an auspicious time to release a book on Britain’s Olympic success. Numerous scandals—accusations of bullying, sexism and failure to keep proper records ofdrugs—are engulfing British Cycling, a symbol of national glory. Yet the transformation of Britain’s performance in the Olympics remains a remarkable tale. In 1996, Britain’s “team of shame” came 36th in the medal table, below Algeria, Ireland and North Korea. At the London games of 2012, Team GB (as the United Kingdom’s squad is officially known) won 65 medals, up from 15 in 1996.Britain performed even better in Rio last year, winning 27 golds and 67 medals in all, finishing second, above China, in the overall medal table, defying the trend of host nations’ sliding down the tables in the following games.

段落讲解：auspicious来自于auspice这个名词，表示“好兆头”。auspicious便是指“预示着好结果”， showing a future success is likely。例如auspicious beginning，“开门红”。文章中这个词还可以换用成promising，encouraging，或另外一个表示吉利的词propitious。还有一个表示预兆的词，omen 。它可以指好的预兆，例如可以说a good omen, 不过通常情况下都是指凶兆。它的形容词形式为ominous。

These hauls have been a triumph for detailed and ambitious planning, as Owen Slot, a sports writer for the Times, explains in an engaging book.Huge spikes in cash have helped. Across Olympic and Paralympic sports, UK Sport, Britain’s funding body, spent £69m ($89m) on Sydney 2000 but almost £350m on Rio 2016. Yet cash alone cannot explain all of Team GB’s success: for the 2012 games, South Korea and Japan spent over three times more than Britain and had worse returns.

段落讲解：从上次的《收缩效应》这篇文章中，我们学习到一个表示大幅上升、迅猛增长的词，surge。这里的spike也表示同样的意思。

UK Sport adopts the mindset of an investor seeking the best returns wherever they can be found. The model has been unashamedly ruthless,concentrating on disciplines with the best medal prospects while ditching also-rans. Even among the sports that do receive funding, cash is diverted to a tiny coterie of elite athletes: the £21m allocated to swimming before Rio was focused on nine “Golden Children”. Before Rio 2016, Liam Tancock, Britain’s best male swimmer of recent times, lost his funding largely because he would turn 31 before the games—past his prime.

段落讲解：这里ditch这个词是“抛弃、甩掉”的意思，说被男朋友或女朋友甩了也可以用这个词。它后面的also-run也十分直观和生动，就是指“别人参加比赛、拿冠军，我也跟着跑了跑，但什么都没拿到”的陪跑者。

Mr Slot’s attention to detail turns up some fascinating facts. East German-style national talent-scouting programmes were created, producing Olympic medallists from those who had never previously played the sport—in the process debunking a widespread notion that10,000 hours are needed to achieve excellence in a skill. Coaches were hookedup to heart-rate-variance monitors, to understand how to manage their stress levels better, and Team GB’s managers analysed the optimal way to coach athletes of different sexes. Teams engaged parents about the best techniques for nurturing high-performance athletes. The British Olympic Association made its first reconnaissance mission to Brazil, to find ideal hotels and training facilities, six years before Rio 2016.

段落讲解：turn up有很多意思，最常见的是“调大音量”，做不及物动词时可以表示“出现”，例如new evidence has turned up，出现了新证据；或his name always turns up in the newspaper，他的名字常出现在报纸上。这里的turn up是及物的用法，表示find, discover，把……翻出来。

UK Sport has borrowed from a wide array of fields in pursuit of an edge. Music schools and military special forces were asked for advice on spotting talent and performing under pressure, and an expert in turning around flagging businesses, borrowed from aprivate-equity firm, helped improve British shooting’s meagre performance. Mr Slot’s book is written in conjunction with Simon Timson and Chelsea Warr, two of Team GB’s directors of performance, who contribute a brief summary of lessons after each chapter. Their input is double-edged: it ensures that the book provides an unrivalled look inside UK Sport’s medal-factory, but may also keep Mr Slot from tackling some subjects with complete independence.

段落讲解：turn和around连在一起形成一个名词，就是“力挽狂澜”的意思，这里的turn around便是表示同样意思的及物动词用法。Flag作为名词本意是旗子，作及物动词时有“把……标出来”的意思。作不及物动词时，表示”松了劲儿了，泄气，疲乏”的意思。

The increased investment in the Olympics and the subsequent bonanza of medals, may have given Britain a reason to hold its head high. But success for the elite has come at a time of falling sports participation in Britain, with the decline greatest among the poor. For all the successes, the question lurking beneath this book is an uncomfortable one. In an era of austerity and impoverished grassroots sport,has the price of these medals been too great?

段落讲解：bonanza的原意是“富矿”，是一个来自西班牙语的词，可引申为“飞来横财、突然上升”的意思。这里就表示“忽然来了一大批奖牌、一个金牌的‘富矿’”；lurk表示悄悄地藏在后面，且常常出于坏的目的，例如someone out there lurking in the shadow。

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