READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1—13 which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

How Much Higher? How Much Faster?

— Limits to human sporting performance are not yet in sight 

多高？多块？

——人类运动极限没有尽头

Since the early years of the twentieth century, when the International Athletic Federation began keeping records, there has been a steady improvement in how fast athletes run, how high they jump and how far they are able to hurl massive objects, themselves included, through space. For the so-called power events — that require a relatively brief, explosive release of energy, like the 100-metre sprint and the long jump — times and distances have improved ten to twenty percent. In the endurance events the results have been more dramatic. At the 1908 Olympics, John Hayes of the U.S. team ran a marathon in a time of 2:55:18. In 1999, Morocco's Khalid Khannouchi set a new world record of 2:05:42, almost thirty percent faster.

自从20世纪早期国际田径联合会开始记录，运动员奔跑的速度、跳跃的高度和投掷重物的距离、跳远的距离都一直持稳步上升的趋势。对于需要相对短促的爆发力的所谓力量型项目，例如100米短跑和跳远——时间和距离都有了10%到20%的提高。在耐力项目张，结果更加惊人。在1908年奥运会中，美国队的John Hayes跑出了2:55:18的马拉松成绩。在1999年，摩洛哥的Khalid Khannouchi跑出了2:05:42的新世界纪录，快了将近30%。

No one theory can explain improvements in performance, but the most important factor has been genetics. ‘The athlete must choose his parents carefully,’ says Jesus Dapena, a sports scientist at Indiana University, invoking an oft-cited adage. Over the past century, the composition of the human gene pool has not changed appreciably, but with increasing global participation in athletics — and greater rewards to tempt athletes — it is more likely that individuals possessing the unique complement of genes for athletic perfomance can be identified early. ‘Was there someone like [sprinter] Michael Johnson in the 1920s?’ Dapena asks. ‘I’m sure that there was, but his talent was probably never realized.’

没有一种理论可以完整地解释运动员表现的进步，但是最重要因素是基因。”运动员一定要小心地选择父母，”Jesus Dapena，一位印第安纳大学的运动科学家引用了谚语说道。在过去的一个世纪里，人类基因库的构成并没有明显变化，但是随着全球参与体育运动——再加上吸引运动员的奖励越来越多——现在更有可能尽早地发现具备独特运动基因的个体。“在19世纪20年代，还有没有像短跑名将迈克尔·约翰逊一样的人了？”Dapena问道。“我确定是有的，但是他的天赋可能一直不为人所知。”

Identifying genetically talented individuals is only the first step. Michael Yessis, an emeritus professor of Sports Science at California State University at Fullerton, maintains that ‘genetics only determines about one third of what an athlete can do. But with the right training we can go much further with that one third than we’ve been going.’ Yessis believes that U.S. runners, despite their impressive achievements, are ‘running on their genetics’. By applying more scientific methods, ‘they’re going to go much faster’. These methods include strength training that duplicates what they are doing in their running events as well as plyometrics, a technique pioneered in the former Soviet Union.

发现有基因天赋的个体只是第一步。Michael Yessis，加州大学Fullerton分校的退休教授认为，“基因只能决定一个运动员能力的三分之一。但是辅以正确的训练，我们能做的远不止这三分之一。Yessis认为，美国的跑步运动员，不论他们有多令人印象深刻的成就，都是在”靠着基因跑步”。通过使用更多的科学手段，“他们将会跑得更快”。这些手段包括重复运动员在比赛中动作的力量训练，还有前苏联首先使用的一种技术——增强式训练。

Whereas most exercises are designed to build up strength or endurance, plyometrics focuses on increasing power — the rate at which an athlete can expend energy. When a sprinter runs, Yessis explains, her foot stays in contact with the ground for just under a tenth of a second, half of which is devoted to landing and the other half to pushing off. Plyometric exercises help athletes make the best use of this brief interval.

虽然大部分锻炼都是为了增强体力和耐力，增增强式训练却专注于力量——运动员使用能量的速度。Yessis解释说，当一个短跑运动员的脚与地面接触时间少于十分之一秒时，一半的时间用于着地，另一半时间用于蹬地。增强式训练帮助运动员充分利用这短暂的一瞬间。

Nutrition is another area that sports trainers have failed to address adequately. ‘Many athletes are not getting the best nutrition, even through supplements,’ Yessis insists. Each activity has its own nutritional needs. Few coaches, for instance, understand how deficiencies in trace mineral can lead to injuries.

营养是运动员教练不够重视的方面。“很多运动员即使吃着补品，也得不到最好的营养。”Yessis坚持说。每种运动都有它所需要的营养。几乎没有有教练懂得缺乏微量矿物质元素会带来什么样的伤害。

Focused training will also play a role in enabling records to be broken. ‘If we applied the Russian training model to some of the outstanding runners we have in this country,’ Yessis asserts, ‘they would be breaking records left and right.’ He will not predict by how much, however: ‘Exactly what the limits are it’s hard to say, but there will be increase even if only by hundredths of a second, as long as our training continues to improve.’

在打破记录方面，集中训练也扮演着重要的角色。“如果我们采用俄罗斯人训练模特的方法来训练这个国家中一些出色的运动员，”Yessis说，“他们会处处破纪录的。”然而，他并不会语言能破多少记录。“很难说极限到底在哪里，但只要我们的训练继续改进，就一定会进步，哪怕是一秒钟只提高百分之一。

One of the most important new methodologies is biomechanics, the study of the body in motion. A biomechanics films an athlete in action and then digitizes her performance, recording the motion of every joint and limb in three dimensions. By applying Newton’s laws to these motions, ‘we can say that this athlete’s run is not fast enough; that this one is not using his arms strongly enough during take-off,’ says Dapena, who uses these methods to help high jumpers. To date, however, biomechanics has made only a small difference to athletic performance.

最重要的新方法论之一就是生物力学，研究运动中的身体的学科。生物力学拍摄运动员运动的过程，然后将其表现数字化，并记录每一个关节和四肢运动的三维动态。通过在这些运动中采用牛顿定律，“我们可以说，这个运动员跑得还不够快；这个运动员在抛掷时手臂还不够用力，”Dapena说，他用这种方法帮助跳高运动员。但是，迄今为止，生物力学在运动员表现上只发挥了一点作用。

Revolutionary ideas still come from the athletes themselves. For example, during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, a relatively unknown high jumper named Dick Fosbury won the gold by going over the bar backwards, in complete contradiction of all the received high-jumping wisdom, a move instantly dubbed the Fosbury flop. Fosbury himself did not know what he was doing. That understanding took the later analysis of biomechanics, who put their minds to comprehending something that was too complex and unorthodox ever to have been invented through their own mathematical simulations. Fosbury also required another element that lies behind many improvements in athletic performance: an innovation in athletic equipment. In Fosbury’s case, it was the cushions that jumpers land on. Traditionally, high jumpers would land in pits filled with sawdust.But by Fosbury’s time, sawdust pits had been replaced by soft foam cushions, ideal for flopping.

革命性的观点还是来自于运动员本身。比如说，在1968年的墨西哥奥运会，一个相对不知名的跳高运动员Dick Fosbury通过向后跳跃的方法赢得了金牌，这个动作与所有已知的跳高方式都是相反的，立刻被命名为福斯贝立式挑高（即背跃式）。Fosbury本人其实不知道自己在做什么。生物力学专家经过之后的分析理解了这一做法。他们绞尽脑汁地理解那些数学模拟法无法创造出来的，过于复杂，非传统的方法。Fosbury也需要很多运动员表现进步背后的另一个因素：运动员装备创新。在Fosbury的例子中，这个装备就运动员着陆的垫子。在过去，跳高运动员会着陆在装满木屑的深坑里。但是在Fosbury的时代，装满木屑的深坑变成了柔软的泡沫塑料垫子，非常适合摔落。

In the end, most people who examination human performance are humbled by the resourcefulness of athletes and the powers of the human body. ‘Once you study athletics, you learn that it’s a vexingly complex issue,’ says John S.Raglin, a sports psychologist at Indiana University. ‘Core performance is not a simple of mundane thing of higher, faster, longer. So many variables enter into the equation, and our understanding in many cases is fundamental. We’ve got a long way to go.’ For the foreseeable future, records will be made to be broken.

最终，大部分测算过人类表现的人都被运动员的潜力和人类的身体的力量所折服。“当你研究运动员时，你会懂得这是一个极其复杂的问题，”印第安纳大学的运动心理学专家John S.Raglin说，核心表现不是一个更高，更快，更远的简单平凡问题。很多变量都要引入这一方程，而且在很多情况下我们的理解只是最基础的。我们还有很长的路要走。”在可以预见的将来，记录还会继续打破。