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Bravo to the Chinese badminton players
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Bravo to the Chinese badminton players – they're just trying to win medals
Criticising a nation's athletes for wanting to win as many medals as possible is to forget what the Olympics is really about
The attacks on Chinese and Korean badminton players are grossly unfair. They were doing their best with added cunning. Day and after day we read relentless hyperbole about the vital importance to national pride of winning: not winning a heat or a round or an exhibition, but winning medals. So obsessed is the media with this single index that the BBC has stopped displaying the medals table because it is too humiliating. This is the pastiche chauvinism of a banana republic.
Along come the Chinese, who clearly know how to win. You plan. The badminton heats were apparently staged to give an incentive, in certain circumstances, to losing games in the qualifying stages. Faced with the risk of a tougher opponent later and thus losing a medal, the players did what their tacticians said. They lost a round. I cannot see how, in sporting terms, this is any different from sprint cyclists hovering for an age on a curve, waiting for the right moment to surge forward. Anyway, the athletes were not trying to lose, they were losing so as being more likely to win.
The result on the night may have been depressing for the spectators, but no one was forcing them to watch. They would be the first to howl if a British team so messed up the qualifying rounds as to lose a medal. The concept of the Olympics as being not about winning but "about taking part" ended long ago. Modern Olympics are parodies of Hitler's nationalist games of 1936. They are a statist contest determined by who wins the most medals.
As for watching people lose, that can develop its own rules and excitement. As a boy I recall the most engrossing event at the village sports day was the slow bicycle race. The only rule was that you had to stay on your bike and could not go backwards. Three-legged races were similarly enjoyable, as was running backwards. It was only the swimmers who elevated not moving as fast as possible from A to B into an art, with backstroke, butterfly and such nonsense.
The truth of the matter is that the actions of these badminton players are in the spirit of the modern Olympics. It is not a spectator sport but a deeply serious competition for national pride. The players should be congratulated on their ingenuity.
向中国羽毛球选手们欢呼——她们只是在试着赢得奖牌
因一个国家的运动员试图赢得尽可能多的奖牌而批评她们才是忘记了奥林匹克的宗旨
作者 西蒙斯 詹金斯
By Simon Jenkins
当面临遇到另一个更加难缠的对手的风险时，选手们听从了她们参谋人员的劝告。她们输掉了一场比赛。从体育的角度，我看不出这与短距自行车选手在弯道上保留速度以待最好的时机才冲刺有什么不同。无论如何这些运动员并不是真要输球，她们这场输掉是为了将来更可能胜利。
事实是，这些羽毛球选手的行为恰恰符合了现代奥林匹克精神。这并不是一个为了观众的观赏性比赛，而是一个极其严肃的为了国家荣誉的竞赛。这些选手们应为她们的战术机变而受到褒奖。
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commen ... nton-players-medals |
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楼主:Bob
发表于 2012-8-2 16:01
