美国国家公共电台 NPR More Than Birdies And Backyards: This Olympian Will School You On Badminton

More Than Birdies And Backyards: This Olympian Will School You On Badminton

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

That let's talk about some of the other Olympic sports, not the ones that suck up the attention, like swimming, gymnastics, track and field. There are a total of 41 Olympic summer sports, and hundreds of American athletes are training out of the spotlight¹. NPR's Melissa Block caught up with one of them in Southern California.

HOWARD SHU: So my name's Howard Shu. I'm from Anaheim, Calif. So I play badminton.

MELISSA BLOCK, BYLINE²: Howard Shu has spent 17 years perfecting his game. He's 25 now. He'll be competing in men's singles badminton in Rio, and he'd like to clear up a few misconceptions.

SHU: The first misconception is - it's not an outdoor sport.

BLOCK: This is not the backyard game of your childhood. Wind is the enemy. It's played indoors, and it is the fastest racquet sport.

SHU: We hit close to 240 or 250 miles an hour, impact off of the racket.

BLOCK: So imagine how Shu feels when people who whacked³ a birdie around as kids boast - oh, I can take you on.

SHU: There's no way they could even score a point on me.

BLOCK: Howard Shu practices at the San Gabriel Valley Badminton Club in Pomona. Shu and his training partner skim over the floor, practicing drive shots that whiz flat over the net, sneaky drop shots that just barely poke⁴ over and then sink, and huge overhead smashes hard enough to break a string.

(SOUNDBITE OF BADMINTON RALLY)

SHU: Whoa, there it goes. There's a string. Did you hear that?

BLOCK: Just gone.

SHU: Yeah.

BLOCK: And the birdies take a real pounding. Expert players might go through a couple of dozen birdies, or shuttlecocks, during a match. The ones they use are made with 16 feathers that form a cone⁵ - and not just any feathers.

SHU: These feathers are only goose feathers from the left wing, and you can kind of see how they go this way only.

BLOCK: Howard Shu is hard to miss on the court, tall for a badminton player at 6-feet-1. And he loves flashy shoes - fluorescent⁶ orange today. Shu is, by his own description, a sneakerhead, appropriate, he says, given his last name. He has a huge collection to choose from.

SHU: It's about 90 to 100 pairs now. So it's getting up there.

BLOCK: You think? For the last few years, Howard Shu has been training in Taiwan. The quality and variety of players is a lot higher there. In Asia, badminton is huge.

SHU: When we're playing in China or in Indonesia, they're packed stadiums - 10-, 20,000 people.

BLOCK: And players from Asian countries dominate in world competition.

ELISEO CABILDO: Run. Last six seconds, baby. Finish. Get up there. Get up there. Go up. Go up.

BLOCK: As the Olympics drew closer, Howard Shu came back home to California. He's been getting into peak form, sweating through grueling workouts with a personal trainer. Eliseo Cabildo has trained lots of athletes but never a badminton player.

CABILDO: I was very surprised (laughter).

BLOCK: They work on fast-twitch reflexes, speed, agility⁷, explosive power. And when Howard's body is totally exhausted⁸ and in pain...

RYAN REYES: (Unintelligible) You ready?

SHU: Yeah, I'm ready.

REYES: All right.

BLOCK: ...Shu has a physical therapist tending to him. Today, he's getting deep-muscle stimulation⁹ on his right shoulder. Shu winces¹⁰ as the metal tool sends strong percussive¹¹ vibrations¹² into his muscle.

REYES: There you go.

BLOCK: And finally...

(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINE RUNNING, ZIPPER¹³ CLOSING)

BLOCK: ...He gets zipped into a hyperbaric chamber¹⁴ - just like LeBron James, he tells me - and settles in for a nap. He'll be breathing pure oxygen. It helps with performance and recovery. Howard Shu needs to bring everything he's got to Rio. Badminton is one of a handful of Olympic sports where the U.S. has never won a medal. Melissa Block, NPR News.

1 spotlight   

n.公众注意的中心，聚光灯，探照灯，视听，注意，醒目

参考例句：

• This week the spotlight is on the world of fashion.本周引人瞩目的是时装界。
• The spotlight followed her round the stage.聚光灯的光圈随着她在舞台上转。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 whacked   

a.精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• She whacked him with her handbag. 她用手提包狠狠地打他。
• He whacked me on the back and I held both his arms. 他用力拍拍我的背，我抱住他的双臂。

4 poke   

n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• We never thought she would poke her nose into this.想不到她会插上一手。
• Don't poke fun at me.别拿我凑趣儿。

5 cone   

n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果

参考例句：

• Saw-dust piled up in a great cone.锯屑堆积如山。
• The police have sectioned off part of the road with traffic cone.警察用锥形路标把部分路面分隔开来。

6 fluorescent   

adj.荧光的，发出荧光的

参考例句：

• They observed the deflections of the particles by allowing them to fall on a fluorescent screen.他们让粒子落在荧光屏上以观察他们的偏移。
• This fluorescent lighting certainly gives the food a peculiar color.这萤光灯当然增添了食物特别的色彩。

7 agility   

n.敏捷，活泼

参考例句：

• The boy came upstairs with agility.那男孩敏捷地走上楼来。
• His intellect and mental agility have never been in doubt.他的才智和机敏从未受到怀疑。

8 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

9 stimulation   

n.刺激，激励，鼓舞

参考例句：

• The playgroup provides plenty of stimulation for the children.幼儿游戏组给孩子很多启发。
• You don't get any intellectual stimulation in this job.你不能从这份工作中获得任何智力启发。

10 winces   

避开，畏缩( wince的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He winces at the memory of that experience. 他一回想起那番经历就畏缩起来。
• He winces at the memory of that defeat. 一想到那次失败他就畏缩了。

11 percussive   

adj.敲击的

参考例句：

• When it is dragged over pliant areas, an additional percussive tap could indicate this collision. 当它被拖到受范区域时，一个附加的敲击声提示这种碰触。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• Pneumatic DTH (Down-The-Hole) hammer is one of main pneumatic percussive-rotary drilling equipments. 风动冲击器是气动冲击回转钻进的主要设备之一。 来自互联网

12 vibrations   

n.摆动( vibration的名词复数 )；震动；感受；（偏离平衡位置的）一次性往复振动

参考例句：

• We could feel the vibrations from the trucks passing outside. 我们可以感到外面卡车经过时的颤动。
• I am drawn to that girl; I get good vibrations from her. 我被那女孩吸引住了，她使我产生良好的感觉。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 zipper   

n.拉链；v.拉上拉链

参考例句：

• The zipper is red.这条拉链是红色的。
• The zipper is a wonderful invention.拉链是个了不起的发明。

14 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。