冬奥会极限项目令更多女运动员受伤
冬奥会极限项目令更多女运动员受伤
A Czech snowboarder named Sarka Pancochova led the slopestyle event after the first run. On her second trip down the course of obstacles and jumps, she flew through the air, performed a high-arcing, spinning trick, and smacked her head upon landing. Her limp body spun like a propeller into the gully between jumps and slid to a stop.
捷克单板滑雪选手萨尔卡·潘科霍娃(Sarka Pancochova)在坡面障碍技巧决赛的第一轮比赛后领先。第二轮比赛的过程中，在布满障碍和跳台的赛道上，她一跃而起，展示了一个高弧度的旋转技巧，落地时摔到了头部。她软绵绵的身体像螺旋桨一样转动着，跌入了两个跳台之间的凹槽，滑了一会才停下。
Pancochova was soon on her feet, and the uneasy crowd cheered. Her helmet was cracked nearly in half, back to front.
潘科霍娃很快就站了起来，紧张的人群爆发出欢呼声。她的头盔几乎摔成了两半，前后反了过来。
She was one of the lucky ones, seemingly O.K., but her crash last week was indicative of a bigger issue: a messy collage of violent wipeouts at these Olympics. Most of the accidents have occurred at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, site of the snowboarding and freestyle skiing events like halfpipe, slopestyle and moguls.
她是幸运的，看起来没有大碍，但她上周摔倒的经历折射出一个更大的问题：本届冬奥会上演了各种混乱而惨烈的翻跌事故。其中多数事故发生在玫瑰庄园极限公园(Rosa Khutor Extreme Park)，这里是U型场地技巧、坡面障碍技巧和雪上技巧等单板滑雪和自由式滑雪项目的比赛场所。
And most of the injuries have been sustained by women.
而且，大多数受伤的都是女运动员。
Through Monday night, a review of the events at the Extreme Park counted at least 22 accidents that either forced athletes out of the competition or, if on their final run, required medical attention. Of those, 16 involved women. The injury rate is higher when considering that the men’s fields are generally larger.
直到周一晚上，玫瑰庄园极限公园发生了至少22起事故，这些事故要么迫使运动员退出角逐，要么——如果进入到决赛轮——导致他们要接受医疗救治。其中，16起事故与女运动员有关。考虑到男子选手数量更庞大，女性运动员受伤的实际概率比这要更高。
The question, a difficult one, is why.
一个难于回答的问题是，为什么。
The Winter Games have always had dangerous events. But the Extreme Park, as the name suggests, is built on the ageless allure of danger. All of the events there have been added to the Olympic docket since 1992, each a tantalizing cocktail of grace and peril.
冬奥会从来都有一些危险的项目。但是极限公园，顾名思义，是基于危险的永恒魅力而建造的。在那里举办的所有项目，都是1992年开始进入奥运会的，每一项都融合了优雅和冒险，让人欲罢不能。
But unlike some of the time-honored sports of risk, including Alpine skiing, luge and ski jumping, there are few concessions made for women. For both sexes, the walls of the halfpipe are 22 feet tall. The slopestyle course has the same tricky rails and the same massive jumps. The course for ski cross and snowboard cross, a six-person race to the finish over jumps and around icy banked curves, is the same for men and women. The jumps for aerials are the same height. The bumps in moguls play no gender favorites.
不过，与高山滑雪、雪橇和跳台滑雪等历史悠久的风险运动不同，奥运会的一些高风险项目对女性几乎没有照顾。男女运动员的U型槽的高度都是22英尺(约合6.7米)。坡面障碍技巧的赛道也有着同样复杂的路径和同样巨大的跳台。自由式滑雪障碍追逐和单板滑雪障碍追逐对男女运动员也都一视同仁。在这个项目中，六名选手需要经过多个跳台和弧形冰面赛道争取最快到达终点。男女运动员空中腾跃的跳台高度相同。雪上障碍比赛中，障碍对男女选手也没有任何区别。
“Most of the courses are built for the big show, for the men,” said Kim Lamarre of Canada, the bronze medalist in slopestyle skiing, where the competition was delayed a few times by spectacular falls. “I think they could do more to make it safer for women.”
在坡面障碍技巧比赛中获得铜牌的加拿大选手金·拉马尔(Kim Lamarre)说，“多数赛道是为最精彩的演出、为男人设计的。”那场比赛多次因为吓人的摔倒事故而被推迟。“我觉得他们可以采取更多行动，让这项比赛对女运动员来说更安全一些。”
Compare the sports with downhill skiing, in which women have their own course, one that is shorter and less difficult to navigate. Or luge, in which female sliders start lower on the track than the men. Or ski jump, in which women were finally allowed to participate this year, but only on the smaller of the two hills. The Olympics have a history — sexist, perhaps — of trying to protect women from the perils of some sports.
相比之下，滑降比赛有女运动员的专用赛道，长度较短，通过的难度也较小。还有雪橇，女运动员的出发高度比男子低。再就是跳台滑雪，今年首次允许女性参加这一项目，但女子比赛是在两座山中较小的那座进行的。奥运会有一个传统——可能有些性别歧视——是保护女性避免某些危险的运动。
But equality reigns at the Extreme Park, even to the possible detriment of the female participants.
但在玫瑰庄园极限公园，男女平等的原则至上，即使女性参与者可能会受到伤害。
“When we practice, we don’t practice on the same jumps as the men,” said J. F. Cusson, ski slopestyle coach for Canada and a former X Games gold medalist. “They’re too big for them. But when they compete, they have to jump on the same jumps, so they get hurt. It’s a big concern of mine.”
加拿大的坡面障碍技巧教练、前世界极限运动会(X Games)冠军J·F·库森(J. F. Cusson)说，“我们训练时候使用的跳台和男子的不同。男子运动员使用的障碍对她们来说太大了。但在比赛的时候，她们必须跳过同样的跳台，所以会受伤，这是我最大的担忧。”
The most serious injury so far was to Maria Komissarova of Russia, who fractured her spine during training for ski cross. The course is longer and has larger jumps than ever before. To add to the excitement, it also has room for six racers, where previous Olympics ran heats of four.
目前为止，俄罗斯玛利亚·柯米莎诺娃(Maria Komissarova)受的伤最重。她在障碍追逐项目的训练中伤到了脊椎。这次的赛道长度和跳台尺寸比以往都要大。为了增加比赛的刺激性，这次冬奥会提供了六人赛的空间。以前都只进行四人赛。
“It’s one of the bigger courses, but it’s not especially unsafe,” Ralph Pfaeffli, coach of Switzerland’s ski cross team, said after the crash. “It clearly will have some challenge, and we will have to adapt.”
瑞士拉尔夫·普费弗利(Ralph Pfaeffli)障碍追逐队教练在柯米莎诺娃受伤后说，“这是一个较大的赛道，但也不是特别不安全。它显然会具有挑战性，我们只能去适应。”
In some of the events, like the halfpipe and moguls, athletes can decide how fast or high they want to go. But in sports like slopestyle and snowboard and ski cross, they have to maintain a certain speed to launch themselves a certain distance to negotiate the course. Slowing down can be just as dangerous as going fast, and few medals are earned with the brakes on.
在U型场地技巧和雪上技巧等一些项目中，运动员可以自己决定他们行进的速度和高度。但是在坡面障碍技巧、单板滑雪和障碍追逐等项目中，他们就必须保持一定的速度来跨越特定的距离，以成功穿越赛道。减速和高速可能会同样危险，而且一旦控制速度就很难拿到奖牌了。
Olympic organizers want to build courses and competitions that are the equal, at least, of the Winter X Games, where most of the Extreme Park events gained wide popularity. But the invitation-only X Games have small fields, often 10 or fewer of the world’s best. The Olympics, by design, want larger fields with a wide cross-section of countries. The drop-off in talent between top athletes and the bottom of the field can be drastic.
冬奥会主办方在建设时，都希望赛道和比赛的水平至少能达到冬季极限运动会的水准。极限公园的多数项目正是在冬季极限运动会上开始受到广泛关注。但是只能受邀参加的冬季极限运动会，其参赛选手规模很小，常常就是世界顶尖的那十位运动员，或者更少。而奥运会从本质上来说就是要吸引更多来自不同国家的运动员。其中顶尖运动员和垫底选手的能力之不同，可谓天差地别。
There were concerns about slopestyle, which made its Olympic debut here, from the beginning. Men and women worried aloud about the course during training, complaining mostly about jumps bigger than many had seen before. The American snowboarder Shaun White said the course could be “intimidating,” and then pulled out of the competition, worried that an injury would spoil his chance to compete in the gentler confines of the halfpipe.
坡面障碍技巧在索契首次亮相冬奥会，但从一开始就引发了不少的担忧。男女运动员都在训练时对赛道表达了强烈的担心，其中设置的跳台比许多人见过的都要大，他们因此非常不满。美国单板滑雪运动员肖恩·怀特(Shaun White)说这个赛道“令人生畏”，然后就退出了比赛，他担心因伤失去参加赛道较和缓的U型场地技巧比赛的机会。
“There’s a lot of consequence on that course,” Charles Reid of Canada said.
加拿大的查尔斯·赖德(Charles Reid)说，“那条赛道会出现很多情况。”
But the men managed to negotiate the slopestyle course with just one Olympic-ending injury. The women had far more difficulty.
但是男选手们最终都完成了坡面障碍技巧的比赛，只出现了一例导致退出本次奥运会的受伤。而女选手们遭遇的问题则要多得多。
Kaya Turski of Canada, a favorite in ski slopestyle, foreshadowed the carnage when she said before the competition that the course was “a little scary” and “unnecessarily risky.” She said that a lot of the women had not been on a course anywhere nearly as large and intimidating. The precompetition anxiety was palpable.
加拿大的卡亚·图尔斯基(Kaya Turski)是人们喜爱的一位坡面障碍技巧滑雪运动员，她在赛前就预言会出现大量受伤的情况，她说赛道“有点儿吓人”，也“没必要那么危险”。她说，许多女选手此前滑过的赛道，大小和危险程度都无法与这条赛道相提并论。赛前的焦虑情绪分外明显。
“It’s probably the most difficult course we’ve ever been on,” Turski said.
图尔斯基说，“这可能会是我们滑过的难度最高的赛道。”
She then crashed on each of her two runs in qualifications and finished 19th.
随后，她在资格赛的两次滑行中都跌倒了，最后排在第19。
The slopestyle course did present options, including two ramps at each of the three big jumps, one slightly smaller than the other. About half the women’s field used the smaller jumps in qualifications (none of the men did), and a few of the 12 finalists used the smaller jumps, but that did not prevent injuries.
运动员在坡面障碍技巧的比赛中的确可以有其他选择，在三个大跳台的旁边都各有两条小坡道，一条比另一条略小。女选手中大约有一半在资格赛中都会选择小跳台(男选手中没有人这么做)，进入决赛的12名女选手中也有几位选择了小跳台，但这也没能防止意外的出现。
“I see it every contest,” Cusson said. “Unless they are forced to hit the smaller side, the best ones will always go for the bigger jumps. They want to prove to everybody that they are capable. And then all the other girls will follow.”
“每场比赛我都会看到意外的发生，”库森说。“除非强迫她们从小坡道走，最好的那些运动员一定会去尝试大跳台。她们想向所有人证明自己是有能力的。这样一来，所有其他的女选手也不得不这么做。”
While men are now attempting triple flips, women are not to the point of doing doubles. Cusson believes that the smaller jumps are sufficient for the tricks that women are doing. At last year’s world championships in Norway, Cusson required his team to use the smaller jumps to limit injuries. Some women were upset, afraid that their scores from judges would be lower without the greater risk. But Canada finished first, second and fifth in the competition.
就在男选手纷纷尝试三连翻的时候，女选手们还没有达到两次连翻的水平。库森相信，对于女选手尝试的动作来说，小跳台已经足够了。在去年于挪威举行的世界锦标赛上，库森要求他手下的队员走小跳台，尽量减少受伤。一些女选手为此很不高兴，担心如果不多冒点儿险，裁判的打分就会较低。但是在比赛中，加拿大选手取得了第一、第二和第五的名次。
“We should be able to showcase our sport on the big jumps,” said Devin Logan of the United States, who won a silver medal in ski slopestyle. Logan said she prefers the bigger jumps because they give her more time in the air to perform her tricks, though she appreciates the option that the smaller jumps provide in poor weather or snow conditions. But peer pressure can be an issue, she said.
美国选手德温·洛根(Devin Logan)在坡面障碍技巧滑雪中得了一块银牌，她说，“我们应该能够在大跳台上展示我们的技艺。”洛根说她更喜欢大跳台，因为这会给她更多时间在空中展示她的动作，不过在恶劣天气或雪天能有较小的障碍可选，她也是领情的。但她说，参赛选手中会有相互竞争的压力。
“We’re all competitive athletes,” Logan said. “We all want to stand on the podium. If someone is hitting tricks off the bigger jumps, then you’re going to want to, too.”
洛根说，“我们都是乐于竞争的运动员。我们都想站在领奖台上。如果某人走了大跳台，做出了复杂的动作，那么你也会想这么做。”
