听力文本

Few sports test the limits of professional athletes like cycling. Cycling Commentator: It's a furious threat. But it's not just human endurance on the track that delivers the winning formula, it's human ingenuity off it. It's the world's fastest bike. In an elite sport, the difference between success and failure is often the finest of margins. This is base camp for one of the most successful teams in global sport. Great Britain's track cyclists have topped the medals tables at the past three Olympic games. And it's a team that keeps churning out winners. We wanna be the fastest in the world, we don't just wanna win the Olympics, we wanna win in the fastest time ever. In a sport where races are decided by as little as 1/1000th of a second, Emily and her teammates are obsessed with one thing: marginal gains. A little margin of half a percent will make that difference on the day. Cycling Commentator: Turning the pressure on. And one of the best places to find those tiny margins is on the bike. The team's key man for this is an aerodynamics expert and ex-Formula One motor racing engineer. My job is simply to use technology and engineering in any way I can to make the team go faster. Cambridge University Professor of Engineering, Tony Purnell, designed the world-renownedT5GB bike with manufacturer Cérvelo. By dramatically reducing air resistance, it helped the British team enjoy its most successful Olympics ever. It's the world's fastest bike. The way those layers of carbon fiber are constructed all makes for a lighter and a stiffer bike, without compromising the aerodynamics. All important milliseconds were shaved off performance times by making the tiniest of design changes, even down to the chain. When you cycle, a little bit of the power you produce gets lost in friction in the chain. If you can reduce that loss, it translates into the athlete being that little bit more powerful. Using that chain would have made the difference in the games between the silver and the gold medal. It's not just the bike where aerodynamic perfection is relentlessly pursued, it's also the person on it. The precise position of the rider can make all the difference. Cycling Commentator: Always ahead of schedule, he was 45 seconds up after 40 kilometers. Chris Boardman broke the one hour world record. Cycling Commentator: As Boardman settles into the superman position, arms stretched in front of his head, for smoother aerodynamics. By pioneering his legendary superman position. Today, this legacy lives on at the state-of-the-art Board man Performance Center, in Evesham, England. Bike design can absolutely help, but we see that the most significant portion of the aerodynamic effects and the drag is coming from the rider themselves. Sit down, tell me a little bit more about the direction we want to take, what do we want to look at.

Today, Jamie is helping professional cyclist Dan Bigham decipher his optimum body posture for an upcoming team pursuit race. In the wind tunnel, Dan is battling winds of over 60km/h to simulate the drag condition she'll face on the track. His performance, and ultimately success, could depend on a series of almost imperceptible tweaks to his position on the bike. Okay Dan, let's go for our first change, we'll do this on the fly. Let's move the hands, please. By moving his hands slightly forward, and adjusting the gap between them by just millimeters, Dan speeds up by nearly half a second per kilometer. We're operating at a world record place here. So we've found some gains there, particularly from the hand open position, which is absolutely worth having. Come race day, subtle changes like this could add up to a big advantage for Dan's team. Me personally, I'm about 4/10ths quicker just for my turn, and if that gain was for everybody in the team, then we're one and a half to two seconds quicker overall. Cycling's reputation has been damaged by doping. But its pursuit of legitimate marginal gains still sets the pace for many other disciplines. Britain's world-beating cyclists face ever more intense competition from rivals who are quickly learning how to innovate. The pursuit of marginal gains is about to get even more marginal.

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重点词汇解析

furious adj. 激烈的; 狂怒的，暴怒的;

He is furious at the way his wife has been treated

妻子受到的待遇方式让他感到异常愤怒。

stretch v.伸展; 延伸;持续； n.伸展; 弹性;一片； adj.可伸缩的; 弹性的;

The procession stretched for several miles

游行队伍长达数英里。

参考翻译

很少有运动能够像骑车一样测试专业运动员的极限。赛事评论员: “这是一个激烈的威胁！”但是，在赛道上不仅仅是靠人类的耐力才能获得成功的秘诀，而是人类的聪明才智。这是世界上最快的自行车。在精英运动中，成功与失败的区别通常差异甚小。这是全球体育界最成功球队的大本营之一。在过去三届奥运会上，英国的自行车运动员在奖牌榜上名列前茅。这是一支新人辈出的团队。我们想成为世界上最快的，我们不只是想赢得奥运会，我们想赢过有史以来最快的时间。在一场比赛中胜负的决定只有千分之一秒，艾米莉和她的队友都痴迷于一件事：边际收益。略有差不多半个百分点会在当天发挥作用。自行车评论员:"施加压力!"找到那些微小边际效益的最佳地点之一就是在自行车上。该团队的关键人物是空气动力学专家和一级方程式赛车工程师。我的工作就是以任何方式使用技术和工程使团队变得更快。剑桥大学工程学教授，Tony Purnell，与制造商Cérvelo一起设计了世界闻名的T5GB自行车。通过显着降低空气阻力，它帮助英国队赢得了有史以来最成功的奥运会。这是世界上最快的自行车。这些碳纤维层的构造方式都可以用来制造更轻，更结实的自行车，而不会影响空气动力学。通过进行最微小的设计更改，即使是链条，哪怕是一个重要的毫秒都会缩短性能时间。当你骑自行车时，你产生的一点力量会损耗在链条的摩擦中。如果你可以减少这种损失，那就意味着运动员们会变得更加强劲。使用这种链条可以在银牌和金牌之间的比赛中发挥作用。这不仅仅是那些不懈追求空气动力学完美的自行车，运动员也一样。骑手的准确位置会发挥重要作用。自行车评论员：“一直处于领先，在40公里后，他提升了45秒。”In 1996, Olympic Gold medalist克里斯博德曼打破了一小时的世界纪录。自行车评论员：“当克里斯博德曼进入超人位置时，手臂伸向他的头部，以获得更平稳的空气动力学。由于开拓了他传奇的超人位置。今天，这一遗产继续存在于英格兰伊夫舍姆最先进的Boardman表演中心。自行车的设计绝对有帮助，但是我们看到，空气动力效应和阻力的最重要部分来自骑手本身。坐下来，告诉我更多关于我们想要采取的方向，我们想要看什么。今天，Jamie正在帮助职业自行车运动员Dan Bigham寻找他即将到来的团队追逐比赛中的最佳身体姿势。在风洞中，Dan正在与60公里/小时的风速作斗争，以模拟他将在赛道上面临的阻力条件。他的表现，以及最终的成功，可能取决于他对自行车位置的一系列几乎难以察觉的调整。好的，Dan，让我们去做我们的第一次改变，我们将在飞行中做到这一点。来，请让我们挥下手。通过略微向前移动他的手，并以毫米为单位调整它们之间的间距，Dan每公里的速度将提高近半秒。我们在这里创造了世界纪录。所以我们在那里找到了一些收获，特别是从手放开的位置，发现这点实在太值了。比赛日期日益逼近，这样的细微变化可能会为Dan的团队带来巨大的优势。就我个人而言，轮到我时， 我的速度快了大约四分之一，如果这个收益是团队中的每个人，然后我们整体上快了一秒半到两秒钟。骑自行车的声誉因服用兴奋剂而受损。但它追求合法的边际收益仍然为许多其他学科奠定了前进的步伐。英国的世界自行车运动员面临着来自竞争对手的激烈竞争，这些竞争对手正在迅速学习如何创新。对边际收益的追求即将变得更加微小。