That 2021 feeling

The Tokyo Olympics are not a flop. Nor are they a success

东京奥运会并非失败。它们也没有成功

Opposition to the games has declined. But it has not been replaced by wild enthusiasm either

对举办奥运会的反对声已经减少。但它也没有被狂热的热情所取代

【文章仅供学习交流，一些文字表述仅为报刊观点，例如金牌创新高这种说法，我不同意】

Aug 5th 2021 | TOKYO

JAPAN HAS set several records in recent weeks. Its Olympic team has racked up 21 gold medals, the most in its history. It has a new youngest-ever gold medallist, a 13-year-old skateboarder, Nishiya Momiji. And it has achieved new heights in its daily covid-19 caseload, now exceeding 14,000.

最近几周，日本创下了多项纪录。日本奥运代表团已经获得了21枚金牌，是日本历史上获得金牌最多的一次。它有了有史以来最年轻的金牌得主，13岁的滑板运动员Nishiya Momiji。同时日本每天的covid-19病例数量创新高，目前已超过1.4万例。

词汇

Skateboarder/滑板运动员

Caseload/待处理案件之数量

The combination has generated mixed feelings about the Olympics. Many Japanese have celebrated the athletic triumphs, despite misgivings about the games before they started. Barred from attending most events in person, sports enthusiasts have gathered at outdoor venues to try to catch glimpses of cyclists or skateboarders. Television viewing figures have also been strong. But enthusiasm for sports has not rubbed off on the event as a whole or on its organisers, as Japanese leaders had hoped. The approval ratings for Suga Yoshihide, the prime minister, and his cabinet have dipped below 35%—another new record.

这两者的结合让人们对奥运会产生了复杂的情绪。许多日本人庆祝了运动员的胜利，尽管他们在比赛开始前对奥运会心存疑虑。尽管大多数赛事都禁止体育爱好者亲自（进入场内）参观/庆祝，但他们聚集在户外场馆，试图一睹自行车或滑板运动员的风采。电视收视率数据也很强劲。但人们对体育的热情并没有像日本领导人所希望的那样，对整个奥运会或其组织者产生影响。日本首相菅义伟(Suga Yoshihide)及其内阁的支持率已跌至35%以下——这又是一个新的记录。

词汇

Misgiving/疑虑，担忧，不安

Venue/. 聚会地点；举行场所

Cabinet/内阁

 

These games are likely to be remembered not as a symbol of how humankind overcame the pandemic, but as an example of how strange life became because of it. The oddity has been on display from the start. On opening night, a long column of protesters marched through central Tokyo to the new Olympic stadium. During quiet moments in the ceremony, their chants—”Stop the Olympics”—could be heard inside the mostly empty venue. Farther up the same street, fans gathered, streaming the ceremony on their smartphones and glancing up to catch fireworks and drone shows rising above the stadium’s rafters.

人们记住这些比赛可能不是作为人类如何克服疫情的标志，而是作为一个例子，说明生活因为疫情而变得多么奇怪。这种奇怪现象从一开始就显现出来了。在开幕式的晚上，一长列抗议者穿过东京市中心游行到新的奥林匹克体育场。在开幕式的安静时刻，在几乎空无一人的会场里，可以听到他们的口号——“停止奥运会”。在同一条街上更远的地方，运动迷们聚集在一起，用智能手机直播仪式，抬头看烟花和从体育场的椽子上升起的无人机表演。

词汇

Chant/圣歌；歌唱

 Rafter/椽；筏夫

With the events under way, Olympians have shuttled between hotels and venues, where they compete in front of scatterings of volunteers, officials and journalists. Around the host cities, reminders of the games are muted. Absent are the big crowds and good cheer that usually accompany such events.

随着赛事的进行，奥运选手们穿梭于酒店和场馆之间，在分散的志愿者、官员和记者面前比赛。在主办城市周围，奥运会的提醒（应该是指防疫提醒）已经消失。（防疫提醒）通常伴随这类活动而来的大量人群和欢乐气氛都没有了。

词汇

Mute/消除声音

“It’s a little lonely,” laments Iizuka Masaki, a collector of sports pins waiting outside the heavily guarded gates to the Tokyo stadium in the hope of finding partners from abroad to trade with. When the Japanese and American baseball teams faced off on August 3rd in Yokohama, the loudest noises near the stadium came from the buzzing of cicadas.

“有点孤单，”Iizuka Masaki感叹道，他是一名体育别针的收集者，正等在东京体育场戒备森严的大门外，希望能找到来自国外的交易伙伴。8月3日，当日本和美国棒球队在横滨对决时，体育场附近最大的喧闹声来自蝉鸣。

词汇

Cicada/蝉

 

Mr Suga has alternated between calling medal-winners to congratulate them and calling press conferences to announce new covid countermeasures. With the Delta variant dominant and hospitals under strain, the government decreed this week that only critically ill or high-risk patients would be admitted to hospitals. Others must recover at home. (Deaths have remained relatively low, thanks in part to high vaccination rates among the elderly.) The state of emergency in Tokyo and Okinawa was expanded on August 2nd to include four more prefectures.

菅义伟一边打电话祝贺奖牌得主，一边召开新闻发布会宣布新的抗疫措施。由于德尔塔变异占主导地位，医院面临压力，政府本周宣布，只有危重或高危患者才会入院。其他人则必须在家恢复。(死亡率一直相对较低，部分原因是幸亏老年人接种率高。)8月2日，东京和冲绳的紧急状态扩大到另外四个县。

词汇

 Countermeasure/ 对策；反措施

 

Officials insist that the rising case numbers in Japan have nothing to do with the games. Strictly speaking, that may be true. Some 500,000 covid tests have been conducted on Olympic participants, of which just 0.02% have come back positive. Although a few athletes—and the entire Greek artistic swimming team (yes, that is an Olympic sport)—have had to drop out because of positive tests, the competitions have unfolded smoothly. A handful of athletes and support staff have had their credentials revoked for breaking protocol and wandering around, but as yet no evidence has emerged linking reckless Olympians to viral clusters among the wider population.

官员们坚称，日本病例数量的上升与奥运会无关。严格地说，这可能是真的。对奥运会参赛选手进行了约50万例新冠病毒检测，其中只有0.02%呈阳性。尽管有一些运动员——还有整个希腊艺术游泳队(是的，这是一项奥林匹克运动)——因为检测结果呈阳性而不得不退出比赛，但比赛进展顺利。少数运动员和后勤人员因违反规定和到处乱走而被吊销资证，但迄今没有证据表明鲁莽的奥运选手与更广泛人群中的病毒群有关联。

词汇

 Credential/证书；凭据

protocol /协议；草案

clusters / 群集

Since the start of the pandemic, however, Japan’s ability to contain it has relied on co-operation from the public. The government lacks the legal authority to impose strict lockdowns; its emergency declarations are, in essence, requests for people to limit their movements and for businesses to close early and stop serving alcohol. The current state of emergency is the fourth. Fatigue is setting in.

然而，自疫情爆发以来，日本控制疫情的能力一直依赖于公众的合作。政府缺乏实施严格封锁的法律权限;它的紧急声明本质上是要求人们限制自己的行动，要求企业提前关门并停止供应酒精饮料。目前的紧急状态是四级。（人们）开始感到疲劳了。

Holding the Olympics has reinforced the complacency. Foot traffic, for instance, has fallen far less during the current state of emergency than it did during past ones. “Since the Olympics are being held, it makes people think it’s okay to go out,” says Onishi Moeri, who joined a crowd taking pictures beside the Olympic rings early this week. It has been, muses Mr Iizuka, “a very unusual Olympics”.

举办奥运会强化了这种自满情绪。例如，在目前的紧急状态下，客流量的下降远远小于过去的紧急状态。“既然举办了奥运会，人们就会觉得可以出门了，”Onishi Moeri说。本周早些时候，她加入了在奥运五环旁拍照的人群。Iizuka先生若有所思地说，这是一届“非常不同寻常的奥运会”

词汇

 Foot traffic/人流量