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| BEIJING — When Fan Kexin tensed in readiness before a women’s 500-meter speedskating race at the Winter Olympics in Beijing, a small coal-mining city 860 miles away in China’s northeast held its breath. | 北京——就在范可新紧张备战北京冬奥会短道速滑女子500米的比赛的时候，距北京1350公里开外的一座中国东北煤矿小城正屏息以待。 |
| The city, Qitaihe, has endured mine disasters, industrial closures and an exodus of young people. Yet it has also emerged as a powerhouse in short-track speedskating. | 七台河市经历过矿难、工厂倒闭和年轻人的大批流出。然而，这里也是一座短道速滑重镇。 |
| Its skaters have won an improbably large share of China’s gold medals over several Winter Olympics. They have claimed — individually or in relay teams — seven of China’s 16 golds since 2002. It now hopes for more from Fan, a 28-year-old native of Qitaihe who already helped win China’s first gold at these Games as part of its team for the short-track speedskating mixed-gender relay. | 在过去几届冬奥会，从这里走出的速滑选手在中国金牌总数中占据了相当大的比重。自2002年以来，他们在个人或接力赛项目夺得了中国16枚金牌中的七枚。如今，作为国家队一员，范可新已经帮助中国在冬奥会首次夺得短道速滑混合团体接力赛金牌，而七台河还期盼着这位28岁的本地人能够成就更多。 |
| “This is a place where we focused our attention on one sport, and after we scored success, the people in this little place saw hope,” said Yang Yang, who is from Qitaihe and won China’s first gold at a Winter Olympics, in the 500-meter race in 2002. “It’s become the local culture,” Yang said in an interview while watching the Chinese skaters. | “在这个地方我们还是专注在一个项目上，出了成绩以后，就让这个小地方的人看到了希望，”曾在2002年短道速滑女子500米项目中为中国夺得冬奥会首金的七台河人杨扬说。她一边观看中国速滑选手的比赛，一边接受采访说道，“在当地还是形成了一种文化吧。” |
| China’s growing success in global sports is sometimes presented by promoters or detractors as a top-down plan hatched and executed in Beijing. The story of Qitaihe (pronounced like “chee-thai-her”) shows another side: a powerful element of local initiative. | 不管在支持者还是在反对者口中，中国在全球体育舞台上不断取得的成功有时会被描绘为一个由北京策划和执行的自上而下的计划。七台河的故事则展示出这种体制的另一面：即地方主观能动性的强大影响力。 |
| Competitive skating took off in Qitaihe thanks to one coal miner’s determination to spread the sport, and it has been sustained by generations of coaches and officials who have invested local pride and money in speedskating success. A banner on approach to the city reads: “Home of China’s Olympic champions.” | 竞技滑冰能在七台河兴起，要归功于一位矿工推广这项运动的决心，几代教练员和官员为速滑培养出的地方荣誉感以及投入的资金使得这项运动的风靡得以延续。通往这座城市的一块横幅上写着“中国冬奥冠军之乡”。 |
| Many top skaters from Qitaihe come from blue-collar and farming families wagering that their children’s physical promise may open the way to sports honors and a better life. Fan’s parents have run a key-making and shoe repair shop in the city, which is in Heilongjiang Province, 125 miles from China’s border with Russia. | 七台河的许多顶级滑冰选手都来自蓝领和农村家庭，他们的家长认为，培养孩子的身体天赋能收获体育荣誉，过上更好的生活。范可新的父母在七台河经营一家配钥匙和修鞋的商店，这里位于黑龙江省，距离中俄边境200公里。 |
| “Most of our athletes are the children of miners, and they have this spirit of perseverance, of being able to take hard knocks,” said Zhao Xiaobing, a deputy principal of the Qitaihe Children’s Short-track Speedskating Part-Time School. “It’s only with that spirit that they’re able to soldier on and go all out.” | “我们大多数的运动员，我们的父辈们都是矿工，他们本身就有一种坚韧的、能吃苦、能奉献的精神，”七台河市少儿短道速滑业余体校副校长赵小兵说道。“因为有这种精神的存在，他才能顽强拼搏。” |
| Yet attitudes are changing in China, even in Qitaihe. | 然而，中国的观念正在变化，七台河也不例外。 |
| Coaches have struggled to persuade children and parents that the grueling training is worthwhile for a slim shot at glory. Local authorities have adapted the training programs in an effort to keep more children involved and cast a wider net for promising athletes. | 教练们难以说服孩子和家长相信，在成功希望渺茫的情况下，这种艰苦的训练是值得的。地方当局已经对训练项目进行调整，以便让更多孩子参与进来，为搜罗更多天赋选手撒下更大的网。 |
| “Some parents aren’t willing to send their kids — it’s so cold, conditions are so hard, why put children through that hardship?” Zhao said. “I then work on the thinking of the parents.” | “有的家长不愿意孩子来，这么冷，条件这么不好，为啥让孩子遭那个罪？”赵小兵说。“我就做家长的思想工作。” |
| Before Meng Qingyu arrived in Qitaihe in 1969, the city had no tradition of competitive skating to match its long, harsh winters. But Meng, one of millions of urban Chinese youths sent to work in fields and factories in the depths of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, brought along his ice skates and a passion for the pastime. | 在1969年孟庆余来到七台河之前，这座城市虽然有漫长严寒的冬季，但并不存在竞技滑冰的传统。作为毛泽东文化大革命时期被派往田间和工厂劳作的成百上千万中国城市青年之一，孟庆余将他对滑冰这一消遣的热情带到了这里。 |
| While working as a coal miner, Meng persuaded a nearby school to let him indulge his love of ice skating on its iced-over grounds. Officials paid attention as he won prize after prize in local competitions. They put Meng in charge of building up short-track speedskating, where athletes test their physical agility and mental composure as they careen around the track in tight packs. | 在做矿工的同时，孟庆余说服了附近的一所学校，让他得以在冰雪覆盖的操场上尽情滑冰。他在地方赛事中屡获佳绩，引起了官员们的关注。他们让孟庆余负责培养短道速滑运动员，在这一项目中，运动员需要在拥挤的赛道上飞速滑行，这十分考验他们的身体敏捷性和抗压能力。 |
| By now, at least four generations of coaches and athletes in Qitaihe trace their athletic roots back to Meng. His statue, clutching a stop watch and guiding young skaters, stands in the city’s museum for its champion skaters. | 到如今，七台河至少有四代教练员和运动员从事这一项目的渊源可以追溯到孟庆余。在该市为冠军选手建造的博物馆里，就伫立着他手握秒表指导年轻滑冰选手的雕像。 |
| Cities across northeast China experience long, icy winters, but only “Qitaihe had Coach Meng as the pioneer and as a founder,” Liu Zhiqiang, a journalist in Qitaihe who recently wrote an account of the city’s speedskating history, said in an interview. | 最近撰写了一篇关于该市速滑历史报道的七台河记者刘志强在接受采访时表示，中国东北的许多城市都有漫长寒冷的冬天，但只有“七台河有领头人孟教练”，“有个奠基人”。 |
| But with fewer resources than China’s big coastal cities, Qitaihe opened its first indoor ice rink only in 2013. Earlier generations of skaters trained on outside rinks and frozen river bends, sometimes in temperatures of minus-4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-20 degrees Celsius), or they moved for better facilities in Harbin, the provincial capital. | 但七台河条件不及中国那些沿海大城市，到2013年才开设了第一家室内溜冰场。早年滑冰选手都在室外溜冰场和结冰的河湾训练，那里的气温有时会低至零下20摄氏度；要么就去设施更好的省会哈尔滨。 |
| Meng died in a traffic accident in 2006 while driving to Harbin for training. | 2006年，在前往哈尔滨训练的路上，孟庆余死于一场交通事故。 |
| “When I began to practice skating, I didn’t even know what it was and had never seen ice skates,” Zhao, the coach, said. “Everyone was poor back then so how many people could afford skates?” | “我刚开始练滑冰的时候，我都不知道什么是滑冰，我也没看过滑冰鞋，”赵小兵说。“你想，那时候大家都穷，有多少人能买得起冰鞋？” |
| The city’s investment in skating began to show results, first with provincial championships and then national prizes. A turning point came with Yang’s first winter golds for China, in the 500 meter and then the 1,000 meter competitions in Salt Lake City in 2002. | 从一开始的省级锦标赛再到全国大赛，七台河在滑冰上的投入初见成果。到2002年盐湖城冬奥会，杨扬在500米和1000米项目中先后夺金创造中国历史，这成为一个重要的转折点。 |
| “Suddenly that year in our little city, 500 or 600 kids took up ice skating,” Yang said. “Everyone’s saw it as a kind of hope.” | “我们小地方那年忽然间有五、六百个孩子来滑冰，”杨扬说。“大家都觉得是一种希望吧。” |
| Since then, Qitaihe has produced a stream of short-track champions, including Wang Meng, who won four golds at previous games. | 自那以后，七台河涌现出一批短道速滑冠军，其中包括在此前冬奥会上共收获四枚金牌的王濛。 |
| A dozen schools in Qitaihe now offer speedskating training, and up to 430 children take part, the government says. It’s a pattern of local initiative seen in other Chinese sports, said Susan Brownell, a sports anthropologist at the University of Missouri–St. Louis who specializes in China and the Olympics. | 七台河政府表示，该市目前有十几所学校提供速滑训练课程，有多达430名儿童参加。密苏里大学圣路易斯分校研究中国和奥运会的运动人类学家苏珊·布劳内尔说，在中国其他体育项目中，也可以看到这种地方上的主观能动性。 |
| “Because the central leadership places so much emphasis on sports and winning medals, at all levels in the system you see all kinds of people trying to figure out, ‘How can I work this interest to the benefit of the group I’m in charge of?’” she said. “You just see the level of drive of some of these coaches.” | “由于中央领导非常重视这些项目，也非常重视夺金，因此在体制的各个层级，你会看到所有人都在考虑，‘我如何利用这种兴趣来为我负责的团队谋福利？’”她说。“你可以很明显看到一些教练的决心有多强。” |
| Qitaihe is deep in the northeast region of China, a part of the country that has long been an industrial base and a fertile farming area. But since the 1990s, the northeast has also gone through industrial retrenchment and upheavals. In 2005, 171 miners died in Qitaihe in one of China’s worst mine disasters, and the city’s mines have suffered many smaller accidents. | 七台河地处中国东北腹地，长期以来一直是中国的工业基地和肥沃的农业区。但自上世纪90年代以来，东北经历了工业萧条和剧变。2005年，七台河发生了中国最严重的矿难之一，171名矿工丧生，而这座城市的矿井也发生过许多小型事故。 |
| In recent years, too, the government has closed many smaller mines. The city’s population shrank by a quarter in the past decade, falling to 700,000 in 2020. “The young people leave for college and then never come back,” said Liu, the journalist in Qitaihe. | 近年来，政府也关闭了许多小型煤矿，这座城市的人口在过去十年锐减了四分之一，到2020年只剩下70万人。“年轻人去上了大学，就再也没有回来，”七台河记者刘志强说道。 |
| Local officials hope that sports stars like Fan will help boost the city’s morale and fortunes. Her first gold at these Games came after her two previous Olympics ended in disappointments. After she won the relay gold, the Qitaihe government gave her a bonus of 1 million renminbi, or $160,000. Her mother, Nie Guiling, promised to cook Fan her favorite dish: a fry-up of potato, eggplant and green peppers. | 当地官员希望范可新这样的体育明星能帮助提升这座城市的精神面貌和经济水平。她在前两届冬奥会都失望而归，到本届才夺得个人首金。在拿下接力赛金牌后，七台河政府给了她100万元奖金。母亲聂桂玲答应给范可新做她最爱吃的菜：地三鲜。 |
| Fan, usually phlegmatic, looked close to tears after she failed to make it through her 500-meter quarterfinal, crashing out with a Canadian competitor in a contentious final turn. Her hopes for another gold now rest on the women’s 3,000 meter relay. | 在速滑女子500米四分之一决赛最后一圈的激烈竞逐中，范可新被加拿大选手撞出赛道无缘晋级，赛后，一向不苟言笑的她几乎难忍泪水。现在，她再夺一金的希望就寄托在女子3000米接力赛上了。 |
| “We’re all Qitaihe people,” Fan said earlier, according to China’s Southern Weekend newspaper. “I also hope that afterward more kids from Qitaihe will be able to take up my baton.” | 据中国报纸《南方周末》的报道，范可新此前曾说，“我们都是七台河人，也希望以后有更多七台河的孩子能接上我这一棒。” |
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