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| BEIJING — Ice might just seem to be ice. |
| 北京——冰似乎就是简单的冰。 |
| But not in curling. |
| 但在冰壶运动中却并非如此。 |
| The frozen sheets created for elite competitions like the Olympics are the product of a painstaking process under the direction of a team of specialists hewing to the particular demands of ensuring a heavy stone, aided by the furious sweeping of a broom, glides gracefully down a track. |
| 供奥运会等顶级赛事使用的冰面场地是在专家组的指导下经过繁复的工艺制成的，能满足特定要求，确保冰壶在冰刷的猛烈扫荡下于赛道中稳稳滑行。 |
| Even in the best of conditions, in facilities constructed for the sport, the job is a stressful one. In Beijing, it has been a whole other story. |
| 即便在最好的条件下，在为这项运动而建的体育馆中，任务也是艰巨的。而在北京，情况则是难上加难。 |
| The world’s experts on creating ice worthy of Olympic-class curling were handed a challenge more daunting than anything they had faced: Turn an Olympic-size swimming pool in the National Aquatics Center into lanes of ice ready for the world’s best curlers. |
| 全世界制造奥运级冰壶比赛所需冰块的专家们面临着一个前所未有的挑战：将国家游泳中心里的奥运级泳池变成冰道，为全世界最出色冰壶运动员的竞逐做好准备。 |
| “It’s never really been done before,” said Hans R. Wuthrich, the chief ice technician for the Beijing Games, his fourth Olympics and just one of many elite competitions in his decades-long career. |
| “这是以前从未有过的，”北京冬奥会首席冰类技术员汉斯·R·伍思里希表示，这是他的第四届冬奥会，他在数十年职业生涯中参与过众多顶级赛事。 |
| Chinese officials have boasted about Beijing’s status as the only city that has hosted both the Summer and Winter Games — a feat achieved, in part, by recycling venues built for the 2008 Olympics. |
| 对于北京成为唯一一座同时举办过夏季和冬季奥运会的城市，中国官员自豪不已。北京实现这一成就的部分原因就在于对2008年奥运会场馆的重新利用。 |
| Curling events are in the natatorium with the honeycomb exterior, which was known in 2008 as the Water Cube and where Michael Phelps won eight gold medals for the United States. For the Winter Games, it has been rechristened as the Ice Cube. But getting it ready was hardly as simple as changing its name. |
| 冰壶赛事被放在这座外观如蜂巢的游泳馆进行，2008年，这里被称为“水立方”，迈克尔·菲尔普斯曾在此为美国赢得八枚金牌。该场馆因冬奥会被改名为“冰立方”。但为比赛做好准备，可不像改名那样简单。 |
| A first challenge was to construct the infrastructure to hold up the ice. The pool was filled with a metal scaffolding system topped by a layer of concrete. |
| 首当其冲的难题就是建造支撑冰层的基础设施。泳池里搭满了钢架结构，顶部铺有一层混凝土。 |
| Then came making the ice — and an early obstacle: The Cube’s tap water had a reading of 375 parts per million of total dissolved solids, like salts, minerals and ions. That amount is acceptable for drinking water, but freeze it, and it’s still not good enough to curl on. The impurities affect the ability to make the sheets as flat as they can be. |
| 然后就是制冰，这也是早期遇到的一个障碍：水立方的自来水中总溶解固体（比如盐、矿物质和离子）的含量为百万分之375。这种含量作为饮用水没问题，但若是冰冻凝固，仍不能满足冰壶比赛的要求。这些杂质会影响冰层的平展能力。 |
| The team used filtration systems to clear the water. But by the time they were done, it was too pure for human consumption. |
| 设计团队使用了过滤系统来净水。但当过滤完成，水质又过纯，不再适合人类饮用。 |
| “If you actually drank it,” Mark Callan, the deputy ice technician for the curling events, said, “it would burn your insides.” |
| “如果你真的喝了，”冰壶项目的副冰类技术员马克·卡兰表示，“内脏都会被烧伤。” |
| Outside, water freezes from the top down, creating a surface that is wildly inconsistent. Inside, “you’ve got to go very slowly,” Callan said, “and allow it to freeze the water from the bottom up.” |
| 在户外，水是自上而下结冰，形成极不稳定的表面。但在室内，“你得慢慢来，”卡兰说，“让水从底部向上结冰。” |
| Once the upper layers freeze, white paint, logos and other markings are added. In all, the ice is 10 centimeters thick, or nearly four inches. |
| 一旦上层结冰，就可以添加白色油漆、标志和其他标记。冰层总厚度达到10厘米。 |
| The next hurdle was the air. The building was too dry — “which is a bit ironic,” Callan said, “being we’re in a swimming pool.” |
| 接下来的障碍就是空气。卡兰说，场馆太过干燥，“这有点讽刺，毕竟我们是在一个游泳池里。” |
| The team installed a system of humidifiers releasing a constant mist around the periphery of the ice. That still wasn’t enough. Wuthrich took pride in the solution: filling a smaller pool not far from the ice with hot water. “Everyone thinks we are absolutely crazy,” he said in a post on Twitter, along with a photograph showing it off. |
| 设计团队安装了一个加湿系统，在冰面外围不断释放水雾。但这依然不够。对于最终的解决方案——在离冰面不远的一处小水池里储满热水——伍思里希对此相当得意。“所有人都认为我们肯定是疯了，”他在一篇推文中写到，并附上了展示水池的照片。 |
| Even after the ice is frozen to their specifications, the technicians continue fussing over details, monitoring the ice and the atmosphere around it at a granular level: too warm, too cold, too much moisture, too little moisture, not enough texture for the stone to glide. Any deviation can have an outsize impact on the competition. |
| 即便在冻结的冰已经符合规格后，技术员们也还要为细节操心，对冰面及其周围空气的检测无比细致：太热、太冷、水分太多、水分太少、冰面纹理不足以让冰壶滑行。任何偏差都可能对比赛造成巨大影响。 |
| “We work within a thousandth of an inch of accuracy,” Wuthrich said after his team finished the ice for a round of women’s matches. |
| “我们工作的精度堪称细至毫厘，”伍思里在他的团队为女子项目的一轮赛事完成冰面布置后说道。 |
| The precision of the work contradicts a notion that as far as Olympic sports go, curling is easy. The sport is widely accessible, and in amateur clubs, participants go for a beer and a good time. |
| 这项工作对精度的要求，与人们对奥运赛事的一种观念相矛盾，即冰壶是很轻松的运动。它随处可见，在业余俱乐部里，参赛者往往喝一喝啤酒然后玩一局。 |
| But at the Olympic level, it is driven by athleticism and strategy, and the ability to read and know the ice is a key to winning. As much as the brooms and the stones, it is about the ice. |
| 但在奥运赛场上，冰壶考验的是运动能力和策略，解读比赛和熟悉冰面是获胜的关键。冰的作用，就和冰刷、冰壶一样重要。 |
| “It’s a game of skill, not a game of chance,” Callan said. “So if you can’t provide consistent conditions, then you start to negate the skill level, and it becomes more of a game of chance — and it’s our job to make sure that’s not the case.” |
| “这是比拼技巧的游戏，而不是看运气，”卡兰说。“因此，如果不能提供稳定条件，那就会抵消技巧的作用，比赛就更像在碰运气——而我们的工作就是确保这种情况不能发生。” |
| Wuthrich and Callan — along with a third ice technician, Shawn Olesen — were drawn to this niche career by a passion for curling. They have day jobs. Wuthrich, who lives in Manitoba, owns a landscaping company and nursery; Callan, who lives in Glasgow, Scotland, is the director of sales for the company that makes the stones used in elite curling events by mining granite from an island off Scotland. |
| 伍思里希、卡兰以及另一位冰类技术员肖恩·奥尔森之所以选择这份事业，都是出于对冰壶的热爱。他们都有其他正职工作。伍思里希住在曼尼托巴省，拥有一家园林公司和苗圃；卡兰住在苏格兰格拉斯哥，在一家冰壶制造企业做销售总监，公司从苏格兰一座小岛上开采花岗岩，生产用于顶级冰壶赛事的冰壶。 |
| As much as they find the work satisfying, they also acknowledge the pressure that comes with it. |
| 尽管这份工作给了他们极大满足感，但他们也承认，随之而来的压力是很大的。 |
| “It’s the pinnacle of everything, and as an ice maker, it’s the same thing,” Wuthrich said of the Olympics. “You’ve got to be on your toes all the time. If any little thing happens, you have to fix it. You have to make it the best possible because people tried for 20 years to get to this event.” |
| “这是所有赛事的巅峰，对于制冰商来说也一样，”伍思里希这样评价奥运会。“你必须时刻保持警惕。若是出了什么小问题，都必须解决。你必须尽可能做到最好，因为那些人为了参与这项赛事付出了20年的努力。” |
| One night, before the day’s last round of games, the three technicians — along with a crew of nearly two dozen Chinese volunteers, most of them college students — went through their ice preparation routine. |
| 一天晚上，在当日最后一轮比赛开始前，这三位技术员——还有二十来名中国志愿者，其中大多数是学生——进行了冰上准备工作。 |
| The crew used an ice scraper to even out the lanes. Callan wore a backpack with a canister of water and a sprayer that looked like a shower head. Strutting backward on the lanes, he sprayed droplets of water to create the texture that allows the stones to move across the flat surface and spin. |
| 他们用刮冰器来平整赛道。卡伦的背包里装有一罐水和一个看起来像花洒的喷雾器。他在赛道上迈着大步倒着走，边走边喷水，制造出纹理，让冰壶能在冰面上移动和旋转。 |
| Then they took out a contraption called a rock mover, which allowed them to rake a line of curling stones across the ice to simulate play. They want the ice to be broken in for the players. |
| 然后，他们拿出了一个叫做冰壶移动器的装置，在冰面上排出一行冰壶模拟比赛。他们要通过使用新冰面给运动员做好准备。 |
| In a final step, Callan went out with a single stone and tested it. Under the terms of their contract, they have to provide ice on which a stone can move four to five feet in 24 to 25 seconds. They aim to keep the surface temperature of the ice at roughly 23 degrees Fahrenheit. |
| 最后一步，卡兰拿出一只冰壶进行测试。根据合同条款，他们制造的冰面必须让冰壶能在24或25秒内移动1.2米至1.5米的距离。他们要把冰面温度控制在零下五度左右。 |
| The days are long and getting longer. They arrived in Beijing a month ago, and there have been over a dozen days of competition, with as many as three rounds of games per day. On the job, Wuthrich walks about 10 kilometers a day; because he does the texture pebbling, Callan gets in 12 kilometers. |
| 工作很繁重，并且越来越繁重。他们一个月前抵达北京，自那以后已经进行了十多天的比赛，单日赛事最多达到三轮。工作时，伍思里希每天要步行10公里；卡兰因为还得做冰面纹理，单日步行距离可达12公里。 |
| They start each morning at 6. Lately, problems have kept creeping up, meaning they are often working until 1 a.m. |
| 他们每天早上6点就要开始工作。最近问题不断出现，意味着他们总要工作到凌晨1点。 |
| On Monday night, as the South Korea women’s team was working toward a 5-point lead over Japan, Wuthrich walked away from the ice and sat back for a moment. He imagined himself home in Manitoba, his two black Labrador retrievers nestled on either side of him. He savored the thought, but went back inside, where the curlers were deep in competition, strategizing and shouting. |
| 周一晚，当韩国女子冰壶队领先日本队5分的时候，伍思里希离开冰场，坐下休息了一会儿。他想象自己回到了曼尼托巴省的家中，他的两只黑色拉布拉多依偎在他的两侧。他细细品味着那个画面，但又回到了场内，冰壶选手们激战正酣，制定战略，大声叫喊。 |
| His eyes were on the ice. |
| 他的双眼就注视着那些冰。 |
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