荒誕與愚蠢 奧運會的黑暗歷史
In the late 19th century, Pierre de Coubertin, a French aristocrat and dropout from the priesthood, found his life’s goal: to create a sporting culture that existed separate from political concerns. And in 1896, with the staging of the first modern Olympic Games, Coubertin got his wish. Sort of.
19世紀晚期，法國貴族皮埃爾·德·顧拜旦(Pierre de Coubertin)未能當上教士，卻發現了自己畢生的目標：創立一種脫離政治而存在的體育文化。1896年，第一屆現代奧林匹克運動會開幕，顧拜旦實現了自己的心願。基本上算是吧。
In ancient Greece, athletic endeavors were seen as an important preparation for war, but Coubertin’s gathering in Athens was a more clumsy affair, with 241 athletes, all white and male, competing in nine different sports over two weeks. Races ran clockwise on tracks that measured a curious 330 yards. American sprinters began their heats by crouching, while those next to them stood erect. One Italian who lacked funds jogged most of the way from his home country to Greece. Black ties and top hats were worn for medal ceremonies, in which it was the silver medal, not a gold one, that was the top prize.
在古希臘，體育賽事被視爲一項重要的戰備活動，但是顧拜旦在雅典舉辦的賽會則要笨拙得多。參賽的241名運動員都是白人男性，一共九項賽事，爲期兩週。賽跑運動員沿順時針在環形跑道上賽跑，跑道長度是奇怪的330碼。美國短跑運動員以深蹲作爲準備動作，邊上其他人站得筆直。一個資金不足的意大利人基本是從家鄉慢跑來希臘的。頒獎禮上，人們打黑領帶，戴禮帽，當時第一名的獎牌是銀牌而不是金牌。
The true history of the Games is a far cry from the platitude-laden, sepia-toned nostalgia pumped out by the International Olympic Committee and Olympic sponsors. But as David Goldblatt tells us, little has changed in what is often a story of Olympic absurdity and its disconnect from reality. “The Games” is an exhaustively researched account of the modern Olympics, from Coubertin’s early follies to the clouds hanging over this summer’s events in Rio de Janeiro.
奧林匹克的真實歷史遠非國際奧林匹克委員會與奧運贊助商口中那些充滿空洞說教和浪漫色彩的懷舊敘事。但是正如大衛·戈德布拉特告訴我們的，奧運會的荒誕性，以及它和現實的脫節是經常發生的，幾乎沒有什麼改變。《賽會》一書經過詳盡研究，對現代奧林匹克運動會進行了全面描述，從顧拜旦早期的愚笨行爲，到今年夏天裏約熱內盧奧運會上空籠罩的陰雲。
In trying to write a narrative of the entire Olympics, Goldblatt, the author of a global history of soccer, has taken on a challenge worthy of a marathoner. A book about the scandals alone would risk being biblical in scope. But the greater difficulty is that a thorough Olympic history must also be something of a world history, with tentacles sprawling far beyond the Games themselves.
戈德布拉特是一位全球足球史作家，爲了對整個奧林匹克運動做出全面描述，他接受了馬拉松運動員般的挑戰。就算僅僅是一本關於醜聞的書，也很可能要寫成一部洋洋鉅著。但更困難的是，一部完整的奧林匹克史在某種程度上也一定是一部世界史，其範圍遠遠超出賽事本身。
Like a disciplined distance runner, Goldblatt takes an even-paced approach. His is basically an academic survey that spends roughly the same amount of time on each Olympiad. It is based largely on news accounts, academic journals and the official reports of the Games, all presented with the appropriate whiff of skepticism.
戈德布拉特像一位訓練有素的長跑運動員一樣，採取了穩健的方式。他基本上採取了學術調查的方法，在每一屆奧運會上平均分配時間。他的書主要建立在和奧運賽事有關的新聞、學術期刊和官方報道上，但所有的材料引用都保持着一份必要的質疑。
If Howard Zinn gave us “A People’s History of the United States,” Goldblatt provides a people’s history of the Olympics. So we learn that volunteers at the 1968 Mexico Games were overwhelmingly light-skinned, upper-middle-class women, chosen over their darker-skinned counterparts. Then there’s the Chinese high jumper at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles; the windows of his Shanghai home were broken and his family was threatened after he failed to win a medal in his event. More recently at the Atlanta Games in 1996, many of the arenas were built by mostly Hispanic, low-wage laborers, Goldblatt points out, and some homeless Atlantans were offered one-way bus tickets to any place in the country where they said they had family members or could find a place to sleep.
如果霍華德·津恩(Howard Zinn)爲我們帶來的是《美國人民史》(A People’s History of the United States)，戈德布拉特帶來的就是一部奧林匹克人民史。我們從中讀到，1968年墨西哥奧運會上的志願者大都是淺色皮膚，中上層階級的女性，相同背景但深膚色的人則不能被選中。我們還可以讀到，1984年洛杉磯奧運會上的中國跳高運動員未能獲得獎牌，他在上海家中的玻璃被打破，他的家人受到威脅。戈德布拉特還寫到，在更晚近一些的1996年亞特蘭大奧運會上，許多場館都主要是由西語裔低薪勞工修建的；一些無家可歸的亞特蘭大人只要說出自己在這個國家的任何地方有親人，或者是可以在那裏找到落腳的地方，就可以得到一張去往那裏的單程大巴車票。
It was far from the first time that officials were blind to the concerns of the communities in which the Games were held. Goldblatt details worries that Greece was in no economic position to host the 1896 Games (nor those of 2004). The commercial success of Barcelona in 1992, which is often held up by today’s caravan of consultants as the model for host cities to emulate, was due to a combination of factors that are essentially unrepeatable, including a remarkable artistic heritage. Goldblatt writes that those Games were “a crowning achievement, not a catalyst.”
史上第一次賽事舉辦地的民生關切被官員們忽視，已經是很遙遠的事了。戈德布拉特詳細描寫了當時人們對希臘沒有經濟條件主辦1896年奧運會（2004年時也不行）的憂慮。1992年巴塞羅那奧運會經濟上的成功通常被如今的顧問團作爲值得主辦城市效仿的典範，但當時的成功是種種因素結合的產物，基本難以複製，其中包括這座城市驚人的藝術遺產。戈德布拉特寫道，那屆賽事是“一次巔峯成就，卻不是未來的催化劑”。
While the Olympics today are a picture of diversity and inclusiveness, Goldblatt presents a much more nuanced (and accurate) narrative of their past. When William DeHart Hubbard won a gold medal in the long jump in 1924 in Paris, the first ever gold to be gained by an -African-American, it was reported back home only in the black press. Twelve years later, when Jesse Owens captured four gold medals in Hitler’s Berlin, no paper south of the -Mason-Dixon line published a picture of him. Nor does it seem that top Olympic officials were particularly kind in matters of religion; the American Avery Brundage, an I.O.C. member and later its president, reportedly told the Germans that his own sports clubs in Chicago excluded Jews.
如今的奧林匹克賽事呈現出多樣性和包容性，但戈德布拉特對歷史上奧運會的敘述做到了更加細緻入微的審辨（也更準確）。1924年，威廉·德哈特·哈伯德(William DeHart Hubbard)在巴黎奧運會上獲得了跳遠金牌，這是非裔美國人第一次獲得金牌；但在美國，只有黑人媒體對此進行了報道。12年後，傑西·歐文斯(Jesse Owens)在希特勒時期的柏林奧運會上獲得四塊金牌；梅森－迪克森線(Mason-Dixon line)以南，沒有任何報紙刊登他的照片。奧林匹克高官們對宗教問題也沒有表現出多少寬容；國際奧委會成員、美國人埃弗裏·布倫戴奇(Avery Brundage)（後來成了國際奧委會的主席）據報道曾告訴德國人，他自己在芝加哥的運動俱樂部拒絕接納猶太人。
Coubertin considered women’s sport “the most unesthetic sight human eyes could contemplate” and in 1912 declared that “the Olympic Games must be reserved for men.” Sometimes the women who did compete, like Fanny -Blankers-Koen, a Dutch runner who won four gold medals at the 1948 London Games, received hate mail and jeers. As late as 1960, the Vatican “forbade the clergy to attend or watch women’s events,” and more recently, some female athletes have had to undergo invasive and humiliating gender testing.
顧拜旦覺得女子體育競賽是“人類眼睛所能看到的最沒有美感的景象”，1912年，他宣佈“奧林匹克運動會必須只爲男性舉辦”。有時候，女性參賽者會收到惡意的郵件和嘲弄，比如1948年倫敦奧運會上獲得四塊金牌的荷蘭跑步運動員範妮·布朗克斯-科恩(Fanny -Blankers-Koen)。直到1960年，梵蒂岡還“禁止神職人員觀看女性賽事”。在更晚近一些的年代，還有女性運動員不得不忍受侵犯性和羞辱人的性別檢測。
Goldblatt also describes the perpetual war against doping, reminding readers that the use of -performance-enhancing drugs was very much an “open affair” in the early days of the Games. The I.O.C. became interested only in the late 1930s, and not because of concerns for the health of the athletes. It was worried that drugs threatened the (ultimately discarded) idea of amateurism. That debate is today echoed in the controversy surrounding the N.C.A.A.’s definition of student athletes and serves as a backdrop that explains some of the hollowness around current drug-testing efforts.
戈德布拉特還描述了與興奮劑的長期鬥爭，提醒讀者們，使用能提高運動成績的藥品，在早期的奧運賽事上是“公開的事”。國際奧委會直到20世紀30年代纔開始關注，而且不是因爲考慮到運動員的健康。他們擔心，興奮劑會威脅“業餘”這個概念（這個概念最終被丟棄了）。當年的辯論，今天還能在全國大學生體育協會(N.C.A.A.)關於學生運動員的定義之爭中聽到迴響，也有助於解釋如今某些藥品檢測的空洞無謂。
Coubertin’s own end was far from a podium finish. He died widowed and broke, the latter a result of a series of bad investments. Today, while sponsor dollars still pour in, mounting global criticism is undercutting some of the glamour of the Games. Only two cities put themselves forward to host the 2022 Winter Games. Meanwhile, an Olympic sailing hopeful on the waters in Rio crashed his dinghy into a submerged sofa.
最終，顧拜旦自己的人生並沒有登上領獎臺。他去世時孑然鰥居，一文不名。破產是由於一系列錯誤的投資造成的。如今，儘管贊助資金持續涌入，但全世界不斷增加的批評之聲也令奧運會失色。只有兩個城市申辦2022年冬季奧運會。此外，一位有望角逐里約奧運會的帆船運動員在當地水面撞上了一隻漂浮的沙發，船翻落水。
Because sports are a religion, it’s difficult to imagine a world without the Olympics, and to be sure, they have given us many glorious moments. It would be easy to conclude that the Olympic “movement” has lost its way since the time of Coubertin’s lofty vision, but that, as Goldblatt demonstrates, would be to rewrite history, since the idea of a clean and easy way to achieve peace through sport was a benevolent myth in the first place.
因爲體育是一種信仰，很難想象這個世界沒有奧林匹克運動。確實，奧運賽事也給了我們不少輝煌的時刻。人們很容做出這樣的結論：奧林匹克“運動”已經背離了顧拜旦崇高的初衷，但是，正如戈德布拉特指出的，那將意味着改寫歷史，因爲藉助體育輕而易舉地實現和平，這從一開始就是一個善意的神話。
