China retained the men’s team table tennis title in London on Wednesday, which is about as surprising as hearing on election night that the Communist party has held the seat of Beijing Central. It was a crushing win too: their opponents in the final, South Korea, won only two games out of 11.
中国男子乒乓球队周三在伦敦奥运会赢得团体决赛，成功卫冕，这条消息令人意外的程度，就好比在选举夜听到共产党保住了北京市中心选区的席位。这也是一场实力悬殊的决赛：对手韩国队在11局比赛中仅赢得2局。
This was China’s 35th gold of these Olympics, extending their lead in the medals table over the US to five. Thanks to their domineering performance in the pool, especially the diving pool, China had an early surge but the expectation was that the US would claw their way back.
这是中国在本届奥运会上赢得的第35枚金牌，使中国在奖牌榜上比位居第二的美国多出5枚金牌。借助其在水上项目（尤其是跳水项目）上的强大优势，中国在初期奖牌数遥遥领先，但人们一度以为美国将后来居上。
It has not happened yet and, with only four days remaining, it now might not happen at all – in which case it will be a turning point with a resonance far beyond sport. The relentless focus in the Olympic city on Britain’s own rise to third place may be obscuring the real story.
这种局面尚未发生，在比赛仅剩下4天之际，现在看起来它也许根本不会发生。若果真如此，那将标志着一个转折点，其冲击波将远远超出体育的范畴。在本届奥运会主办城市，人们对英国在奖牌榜上跃升至第三位的注意，也许反而掩盖了真正的故事。
Olympic purists have always considered the medals table somewhat crass. After all, the important thing is supposed to be the taking part. And the idea that one nation was top dog and had in some way “won” the games has always been considered anathema. How much more so that this said anything about their status in the world.
“奥林匹克纯粹主义者”一向认为奖牌榜有点粗俗。毕竟，重要之处理应在于参与。有关某个国家是优胜者、以某种方式“赢得”奥运会的说法，一直被视为令人讨厌。如果有人提出这代表着该国在世界上的地位，那就更加让人不齿了。
And yet. There have been 26 modern Olympic Games before this one (three were cancelled because the world was fighting on other fronts). The US has come top of the medals table 16 times and the Soviet Union seven, all of those between 1956 and 1992, in what might be loosely called the cold war years. Three other countries have finished top once: Britain (1908), Germany (1936) and China (2008), in each case as hosts.
可事实呢？在本届奥运会之前，共有26届现代奥运会（有3届被取消，因为世界当时在其它战线上开战）。美国16次领衔奖牌榜，苏联7次位居榜首，这些都发生在1956年至1992年，与冷战时期大致重合。另外3个国家分别领衔奖牌榜一次：英国（1908年）、德国（1936年）以及中国（2008年），每一次都是在主办奥运会时。
In the haphazard early years and the boycott years of the 1980s, these figures are distorted by who turned up. But the fact remains that those figures offer a perfect encapsulation of the history of the modern world. Who was the most powerful nation on earth, or at least aspired to be? Look at the medals table.
在杂乱无章的早期和上世纪80年代抵制行动盛行的时期，这些数字受到具体参赛国家的扭曲。但事实依然是，这些数字完美地概括了现代世界的历史。谁是地球上最强大（或至少有这个抱负）的国家？看看奖牌榜吧。
Only imperial Britain, Nazi Germany and 21st-century China have broken the duopoly. Who is now the most powerful nation on earth? Maybe we will find out on Sunday if China comes top without home advantage.
只有大英帝国、纳粹德国和21世纪的中国打破了美苏两国的垄断。谁是目前地球上最强大的国家？也许我们将在本周日得到答案——如果中国在没有主场优势的情况下依然领衔奖牌榜的话。
The US-China rivalry is comparatively muted at the Olympics, partly because the Chinese have concentrated most of their efforts in medal-rich environments where the US hardly figures. They have had clean sweeps in table tennis and badminton and a rich harvest in weightlifting. But the swimming produced the most serious international spat of the games, when the American coach John Leonard cast doubts on the methods used to produce the Chinese teenage medley prodigy Ye Shiwen.
在奥运会上，美中角力并不突出，部分原因是中国运动员将主要精力集中于一些奖牌较多的项目，在这些项目上美国不具有明显优势。中国队囊括乒乓球和羽毛球金牌，在举重项目上也收获颇丰。但游泳项目引发了本届奥运会最严重的国际争执：美国教练约翰•伦纳德(John Leonard)对中国培养混合泳少女天才叶诗文的方法提出质疑。
Mostly the Chinese victories are rather discreet. Table tennis might rival dressage as the least watchable of all Olympic sports. The small table is set in the midst of a large hall, which makes it like watching tennis through the wrong end of binoculars. And the ball is so small and hit so fast it is often hard to see who wins the point even on television.
中国队的胜利大多不很显眼。乒乓球也许赶得上马术盛装舞步，是最无看头的奥运比赛项目。小小的乒乓桌放在大体育馆中央，看这种比赛就像倒拿望远镜观看网球比赛。乒乓球如此之小，击球速度如此之大，以至于即便在电视屏幕上也往往难以看出谁赢了一个回合。
The answer is usually China. The world’s top two, Jike Zhang and Ma Long, won their matches easily in the final, and the doubles was even more one-sided.
中国通常是赢球的一方。在团体决赛中，世界排名最前的张继科和马龙轻松取胜，双打比赛中，中国选手的一边倒优势更加明显。
There is some speculation that China’s dominance might one day be challenged by newly enthusiastic ping-pong nations such as Japan and France. And if the medals table teaches us anything, it is that empires fall as well as rise.
有人猜测，中国的霸主地位，有朝一日可能受到近年开始流行乒乓球的国家（如日本和法国）的挑战。的确，如果奖牌榜带给我们任何启示的话，那就是帝国有兴也有衰。
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