在荷兰，坐杆子也是竞技运动？

在荷兰，一连几个小时坐在杆子上是一项竞技运动

They say sports are good for your health, but they probably don’t mean the Dutch sport of Paalzitten or Pole Sitting, which sees competitors literally sitting on wooden poles for dozens of hours, until they surrender to either numbness or boredom.

他们说运动对你的健康有好处，但他们可能并不意味着荷兰的帕阿尔兹滕运动或坐杆运动，这项运动可以让参赛者在木杆上坐上几十个小时，直到他们屈服于麻木或无聊。

No one knows exactly how Paalzitten came to be, but some sources claim that it originated in the Dutch province of Friesland, where locals tried to stave boredom by inventing sports that involved objects used in daily life, like wooden poles. It’s not clear exactly why someone thought sitting on a wooden pole just waiting for the other guys to descend first was an antidote to boredom, but somehow the sport of Paalzitten caught on and despite almost going extinct at one point, it’s still occasionally practiced in the Netherlands.

没有人确切知道帕阿尔兹滕是如何形成的，但一些消息来源称它起源于荷兰弗里斯兰省，当地人试图通过发明运动来避免无聊，这些运动涉及日常生活中使用的物体，如木杆。目前还不清楚为什么有人认为坐在木杆上等着其他人先下来是一种解闷的方法，但不知何故，这项运动开始流行起来，尽管一度濒临灭绝，但荷兰人偶尔也会进行这项运动。

Photo: Hans van Dijk/Wikimedia Commons

Paalzitten poles are usually placed in water, a few meters from each other, so that if the competitors either doze off or get numb enough to fall off, thy don’t get injured. Modern poles are usually equipped with a sit and backrest so the competitors don’t get too uncomfortable, and the rules allow for toilet breaks every few hours. It wasn’t always this lax though. In the early 1970’s, participants were not allowed to leave their poles at all. Instead, a huge canvas was hun around them as they relieved themselves in wooden buckets. Even under these strict conditions, during the 1972 Paalzitten world championship, someone managed to sit on a wooden pole for 92 consecutive hours.

帕尔兹滕杆通常放置在水中，彼此之间相隔几米，这样，如果参赛者打瞌睡或麻木到掉下去，就不会受伤。现代电线杆通常配有坐垫和靠背，这样参赛者就不会感到太不舒服，而且规定每隔几个小时就可以上厕所。不过，它并不总是这么松懈。在20世纪70年代早期，参加者根本不允许离开他们的极点。相反，当他们在木桶里放松的时候，一块巨大的帆布就在他们周围。即使在这些严苛的条件下，在1972年的帕阿尔兹滕世界锦标赛上，也有人设法连续92小时坐在木杆上。

Paalzitten is still around today, but since it’s not the most exciting sport to watch, it is considered more of a tourist attraction than a spectator sport. For obvious reasons, not many people are too eager to sit around for days on end just too see who the last pole sitter is.

这个活动现在仍然存在，但由于它不是最令人兴奋的运动，它被认为是一个旅游景点，而不是一个观众运动。由于明显的原因，不是很多人都很想连续几天坐在那里，只是太想看看谁是坐到最后的人。

This unsually boring sport inspired one of the worst films n Dutch cinematography. Called “Sportsman of the Century“, it tells the story of an avid Paalzitten practitioner training to break the fictional record of 250 days sitting on a pole since early childhood. He even fathers a baby while sitting on the pole, and proceeds to lose his love interest after refusing to cancel his participation in a Paalzitten competition to help her. He ultimately dies as an old man, sitting on a pole, obviously. In 2006, the film was nominated for two Golden Onions, in the categories Worst Film and Worst Director.

这项非常无聊的运动激发了荷兰电影史上最烂的电影之一。这部电影被称为“世纪体育先生”，讲述了一个狂热的帕尔兹滕(Paalzitten)练习者为打破虚构的250天的纪录而进行的训练。他甚至在做钢管上的父亲时生下了一个孩子，在拒绝取消参加帕尔兹滕帮助她的比赛后，他失去了自己的爱情。很明显，他最终以老人的身份死去，坐在一根杆子上。2006年，这部电影获得了最差影片和最差导演两项金洋葱奖提名。