英国奥运军团能否重振帝国雄风?

The U.K. Olympic team started rising. It won 28 medals at the 2000 Sydney Games, 10th in the medal standings. Four years later it notched 30 medals. By 2008 in Beijing, its 47 medals ranked behind only the U.S., China and Russia.
英国奥运代表团已经开始崛起。2000年悉尼奥运会英国队夺得28枚奖牌，在奖牌榜名列第10位，四年后夺得30枚奖牌，到2008年的北京奥运会，其47枚奖牌的成绩仅次于美国、中国和俄罗斯。

This year, Britain has even loftier hopes. The London Games will host the country's biggest and best-funded team ever, with 542 members. The athletes aim to fend off Germany and Australia to retain Britain's No. 4 spot in the overall medal haul. If they're lucky, they'll win more golds than Russia. 'I believe it's our strongest team since 1908,' said Martin Polley, a sports historian and author of the book 'The British Olympics.'
今年，英国有了更高的目标。伦敦奥运会将迎来该国历史上规模最大、资金支持最雄厚的队伍，共542名队员。运动员们的目标是挡住德国和澳大利亚的攻势，保住英国奖牌榜第四名的位置。如果他们够幸运，说不定金牌数还能超过俄罗斯。体育历史学家、《英国奥运史》（The British Olympics）的作者波利（Martin Polley）说，我认为这是1908年以来我们实力最强的团队。

Britain enjoys a meaningful home-field advantage. Nations win 54% more medals when they are host countries rather than ordinary participants, according to Goldman Sachs calculations that measured Summer Olympics from 1972 to 2008.
今年英国有着很强的主场优势。高盛对1972年至2008年期间夏季奥运会数据的研究显示，参赛国家在担任主办国时赢得的奖牌数比不担任主办国时多54%。

Perhaps the U.K.'s biggest hope is in cycling, where Chris Hoy became the first Briton in a century to win three gold medals at a single Olympics in 2008. Other British competitors with multiple past medals include Ben Ainslie, one of the best competitive sailors in history, and swimmer Rebecca Adlington, who won two golds in 2008.
也许英国最大的希望是在自行车项目。2008年，自行车运动员霍伊（Chris Hoy）成为100年来第一个在一场奥运会赢得三枚金牌的英国选手。获得过多枚奥运奖牌的其他英国运动员还包括历史上最优秀的帆船运动员之一艾恩斯利（Ben Ainslie），以及在2008年赢得两枚金牌的游泳运动员阿德灵顿（Rebecca Adlington）。

Team GB is also relying on a raft of first-time medal aspirants. This is particularly so in track and field, where it recruited Charles Van Commenee, a Dutch coach controversial for his take-no-prisoners approach, to improve the team.

英国队也在依赖大量有志夺取奖牌的新秀，在田径项目上尤其如此。英国田径队已经聘任荷兰教练查尔斯•范•康蒙尼（Charles Van Commenee）来提高团队水平，他的强硬手段是颇惹争议的。

Jessica Ennis, the track and field star plastered on billboards across Britain, could take gold in the heptathlon, while brothers Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee could snatch Britain's first-ever medals in the triathlon.
阿里斯泰尔•布朗利（右）和他的兄弟乔纳森•布朗利（左）其海报遍布英国的田径明星恩尼斯（Jessica Ennis）有望夺得女子七项全能金牌，而阿里斯泰尔•布朗利（Alistair Brownlee）和乔纳森•布朗利（Jonathan Brownlee）兄弟有望摘得英国第一枚三项全能比赛奖牌。

Mo Farah, the current men's 5,000-meter world champion, has a realistic chance of ending Ethiopia's 16-year reign in the men's Olympic 10,000-meter event at the London Games. Farah, who was born in Somalia but moved to Britain at age 8, has been training in the Rift Valley in Kenya, which has started hosting an annual high-altitude training camp for British athletes thanks to newly robust funding.
男子5,000米长跑世界冠军法拉（Mo Farah）很有希望在伦敦奥运会上结束埃塞俄比亚对奥林匹克男子一万米项目的统治。法拉出生于索马里，在八岁时移居英国。他一直在肯尼亚的东非大裂谷（Rift Valley）训练。由于新注入的强大资金支持，这里已经开始每年为英国运动员举办高海拔训练营。

To avoid the pain of underperforming in London, Britain agreed in 2006 to provide U.K. Sport with extra funding. U.K. Sport is almost done doling out GBP 312 million (about $488 million) to teams and individuals for the London cycle (2009-2013), up from about GBP 265 million spent for Beijing (2005-2009). U.S. teams don't enjoy a similar pot of public funding for Olympic sports and instead raise money largely from private donors.
为避免在伦敦奥运上表现不佳的痛苦，英国于2006年同意为“英国体育”提供额外的资助。“英国体育”为团队和个人在伦敦奥运周期（2009-2013）发放的资金已接近3.12亿英镑（约合4.88亿美元），高于北京奥运周期（2005-2009）的约2.65亿英镑。美国奥运代表团没有类似的政府资金，其资金主要通过私人捐赠筹集。

U.K. Sport has used the extra money to support athletes as far as eight years in advance of Olympic qualification. Keri-Anne Payne, the 24-year-old British gold medal favorite in long-distance swimming, was first spotted by British coaches in South Africa at age 8.
早在伦敦获得奥运会主办权前八年开始，“英国体育”就开始用这笔额外资金支持运动员。当时，时年八岁、现年24岁的最有望夺得金牌的英国长距离游泳运动员佩恩（Keri-Anne Payne）被英国教练在南非发现。

U.K. Sport operates via a shrewd method that includes strict performance targets for the athletes, the teams and the agency itself.
“英国体育”通过一种精明务实的方式运营，包括对运动员、团队及机构本身设置严格的成绩目标。

The agency ranks British athletes across all sports on the basis of their chance of winning an Olympic medal, slating athletes with multiple-medal winning potential at the top. The ranking, reviewed annually, determines how much individual funding each athlete gets. The higher the ranking, the more money.
该机构根据赢得奖牌的几率将所有项目的英国运动员进行排名，将有潜力夺得多枚奖牌的运动员排在最前面。这份每年复查一次的排名会决定每位运动员能获得多少个人资助。排名越高，资金越多。

'Our no-compromise approach says we're not going to compromise and give everyone a bit,' Nicholl says. 'We are going to invest absolutely the right amount of money from the top down on our meritocratic list.' The agency also shifts money to sports that show more promise.
尼科尔说，根据我们的“不妥协方法”，我们不会让步而给每个人都分一点，我们会按照人才排名表从前往后的顺序，投入绝对合宜的资金数额。

Though the 2012 team may be the finest in Britain's modern Olympic history, it isn't likely to beat the country's medal tally from the 1908 London Games, when British officials drew up the program of events and included oddball sports such as motorboat racing, the tug of war and rackets, allowing Britain to scoop 146 medals. 'Nobody else [besides the British] really knew the rules,' Polley said.
尽管2012代表团可能是英国现代奥运会历史上最优秀的团队，但却不大可能打破英国在1908年伦敦奥运会上的奖牌纪录，当时是由英国政府拟定项目计划，将摩托艇比赛、拔河和 网球等古怪的项目列入赛程，令英国斩获146枚奖牌。波利说，（除了英国人）没有人真正懂得比赛规则。

Still, for today's British team, the biggest challenge may come after London. Almost all teams see a dip in performance after their country hosts the Olympics, but Nicholl says she aims to replicate or beat the U.K.'s 2012 medal haul four years from now in Rio de Janeiro. 'That,' she said, 'would be a real statement to the world that this system really is working.'
不过，对如今的英国队来说，最大的挑战或许是在伦敦奥运会后。一个国家主办奥运会后，该国代表团的表现几乎都会下滑，但尼科尔说，她希望四年后英国队在里约热内卢能保持或打破其在2012年的奖牌成绩。她说，这将会向世界真正证明，这个系统真的在起作用。