澳门马拉松赛程失误考验选手耐力

The term 'marathon' comes from the legend of Pheidippides, the Greek messenger who ran roughly 40 kilometers from Marathon to Athena to report the Persians had been defeated in battle. Since then, marathons have become popular, competitive endurance races 伟 standardized at 42.195 kilometers (26.22 miles) from 1921 onwards.

“马拉松这个词来源于古代希腊传令兵费迪皮迪兹(Pheidippides)的传说。为了让雅典知道波斯人被打败的消息，费迪皮迪兹从马拉松跑到了雅典，全程大约40公里。从此之后，马拉松成为了一种广受欢迎的耐力竞赛。1921年以来，马拉松比赛的标准赛程一直都是42,195公里（26.22英里）。

Until last Sunday in Macau, that is.

不过那是12月2日澳门马拉松比赛之前的事。

Organizers of the Macau Galaxy Entertainment International Marathon acknowledged this week that the Dec. 2 race was three kilometers too long. You'd have thought that the 31st marathon staged by the former Portuguese enclave would be the charm, but a wrong turn by two runners led the entire field astray, competition director Chan Pou Si told the Macau Daily Times.

2012澳门银河娱乐国际马拉松的组织者本周承认，12月2日的比赛赛程比标准赛程长了三公里。这个前葡萄牙殖民地举办的第31届马拉松大赛本来非常让人期待，但比赛总监Chan Pou Si对《澳门每日时报》(Macau Daily Times)说，两名运动员错误的转弯让整个比赛偏离了原定的路线。

'It was planned that the athletes should turn left,' Mr. Chan was quoted by the newspaper as saying. 'Instead, the two leading ones turned right, and the other 2,000 runners followed them.'

报纸援引Chan Pou Si的话说，按照路线安排，运动员本应该向左转弯。但是两名领先的运动员却向右转了，后面的2,000名运动员跟着他们也拐错了方向。

Mr. Chan noted in the interview with the paper that the race's 5:00 a.m. start one hour earlier than in 2011 and rain may have caused the mistake, but added that runners should have known the course.

Chan在接受《澳门每日时报》采访时说，出现失误可能是因为比赛早上5点就开始了（比2011年的起跑时间早了一个小时），再加上又在下雨。但是他补充说运动员应该清楚比赛路线。

The wrong turn also impacted distance in the half-marathon, which shared the same course.

错误转弯还影响了半程马拉松的距离，半程马拉松的路线和全程马拉松前半段的路线相同。

A spokeswoman for the Macau Sports Development Board told China RealTime that she wasn't certain that all runners in the marathon and half-marathon ran extra distance. She said the body has decided finishing times will not be changed to reflect the glitch.

澳门体育发展局(Macau Sports Development Board)的一名发言人告诉“中国实时报(China RealTime)栏目，她不确定全程马拉松和半程马拉松的运动员都跑了更长的距离。她说，该机构已经决定不对最终成绩进行更改以反映这一偏差。

'The result we will keep as what you see on the website,' she said. 'We follow the usual practice of the international federation, so we keep the record as what we have already announced.

她说，我们将保留网站上已发布的结果。我们遵循的是国际联盟的惯例，所以我们保留已经宣布的成绩。

A shorter fun run called the 'mini-marathon,' originally set to be 4.2km, also ended up going long. The cause in that race was a mistake by a volunteer signalmen, who steered runners along a route that caused them to add a full kilometer to their short course, the spokeswoman said.

赛程更短的4.2公里趣味马拉松比赛“迷你马拉松也出现了多跑的情况。上述发言人说，这一比赛是由于一名担任信号员的志愿者犯了个错误，将选手引到了另外的路线上，导致参赛选手多跑了足足一公里。

This year's race, run mostly in the dark and in a driving rain and headwind, was won by Haile Haja Gemeda of Ethiopia in a relatively slow 2:23.56, after Stephen Chemlany of Kenya set a 2:12.49 course record last year. The women's marathon winner was Ehitu Kiros Reda, also of Ethiopia, at 2:50.10. The women's course record of 2:31.48 was also set last year.

今年的比赛大部分在黑暗、强风和大雨中进行，男子组冠军是埃塞俄比亚的占美达(Haile Haja Gemeda)，不过他的成绩与往届相比相对逊色一些，为2小时23分56秒。去年，肯尼亚选手甘伦利(Stephen Chemlany)创造了2小时12分49秒的纪录。女子组的冠军是莉德(Ehitu Kiros Reda)，也是埃塞俄比亚人，成绩为2小时50分10秒。女子组的纪录也是去年创造的，2小时31分48秒。

The winners of the men's and women's marathon each take home $25,000. Men or women breaking the course record by a minute or more add a $15,000 bonus or an extra $10,000 for breaking the record by less than a minute.

男子组和女子组马拉松冠军分别获得2.5万美元的奖金。打破当前纪录的选手可以获得额外奖励，比现时纪录快一分钟或以上的选手可以再获得1.5万美元，比现时纪录快不足一分钟的选手可以再获得1万美元。

Shortly after the race, results went up, and howls of protest began on message boards in nearby Hong Kong, where many runners had come from. Hong Kong is about 70 minutes away from Macau by high-speed ferry. On the HKRunners.com board, runner 'mikec' noted, 'right at the start of the race when we left the stadium I am not sure if we were led the wrong way but we ran straight into a barrier across the road. Then the first 1K marker was at least 2k plus. After that, all the kilometer markers were inaccurate. The gap between the 37 and 38 was only about 500m.'

比赛结束后不久，结果被公布出来，香港一些网站的留言板上出现了大量对比赛的不满。这次比赛有许多选手来自香港。从香港乘坐高速轮渡到澳门大约需要70分钟时间。在HKRunners.com的留言板上，选手mikec指出，在比赛一开始我们离开体育场的时候，我就怀疑我们是否被领到错误的路线上，因为我们直接跑到了路对面的障碍那里。后来，第一个1,000米指示牌距离起点至少有2,000多米。此后，所有的路程指示牌都不准。37公里和38公里指示牌之间的距离大约只有500米。

He wrote that he wore two distance watches. His Garmin GPS watch measured the distance he ran at 43.8 kilometers, while his Polar GPS watch recorded it as 44.1 kilometer.

他写道，他戴着两块测距离的手表。他的佳明(Garmin) GPS手表测量到的距离是43.8公里，他的博能(Polar) GPS手表测得的距离是44.1公里。

An apology appeared on the official race website, with co-organizers Macau Galaxy Entertainment, the Macau Sports Development Board and the Macau Athletics Association issuing their joint 'regret for the technical error (that) happened in this year's marathon.'

2012澳门银河娱乐国际马拉松的官方网站上发布了一则道歉声明，此次比赛的主办方澳门银河娱乐(Macau Galaxy Entertainment)、澳门体育发展局和澳门田径总会(Macau Athletics Association)表示，对于本届赛事中所出现的技术失误深表遗憾。

'The Organizing Committee has already conducted a review to all aspects of this year's event, and promises to take effective measures to make improvements to the event and to provide better racing conditions for all participants,' the statement said.

声明中说，赛事组委会已对赛事各项工作作出深入检讨，并将对有关问题做出有效的改善， 务求为参赛运动员创造更佳的比赛环境。

(Full disclosure, the author of this post ran in the Macau half-marathon. His Garmin Forerunner GPS watch recorded a distance of 22.4 kilometers, roughly a kilometer longer than the typical distance.)

（本文作者参加了半程马拉松。作者的佳明Forerunner GPS手表记录的距离是22.4公里，大约比正常的距离多了一公里。）

While grouching about the race glitches, runners on the Hong Kong message board seemed to take things in stride. They, at least, fared better than poor Pheidippides. As the legend has it, he collapsed and died from exertion after finishing the world's first marathon.

尽管发了些牢骚，但是香港论坛上的参赛者似乎还是轻松完成了比赛。他们至少要比费迪皮迪兹更加幸运。在结束了世界上第一次马拉松长跑之后，费迪皮迪兹精疲力竭倒地身亡。