最终，这款中袖长裤紧身衣还是未能出现在奥运会体操团体决赛中。穿着它来对抗体操运动“性化”的德国女将们在资格赛里就被淘汰。取而代之的是，获得奖牌的队伍所穿的常见的露及大腿、镶满水钻的比赛服。
The earlier shock over the Norwegian female beach handball players being fined for daring to declare that they felt better in tiny spandex shorts rather than tinier bikini bottoms (and act on their own desires) was not revisited because handball is only an Olympics Youth sport, and none of the beach volleyball players lodged a similar protest.
此前，挪威女子沙滩手球队因为大胆宣称穿弹力短裤比穿更短的比基尼泳裤更舒适（以及未守规矩）而遭到罚款，此事引发的震惊并没有得到重视，因为手球只是青奥会项目，而沙滩排球选手并没有人提出类似的抗议。
Yet, in many ways these Olympic Games have been shaped as much by what is not there as by what is.
然而，在许多方面，这些奥运赛事的形式既受到现有因素的影响，也受到尚不存在的因素影响。
Like the questions about the ban on marijuana — now legal in many states — spurred by the absence of the sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson, or about what makes a woman, raised by the decision of the middle-distance champion Caster Semenya not to compete rather than forcibly lower her natural levels of testosterone, the controversies over clothing have triggered a re-examination of the status quo.
短跑运动员沙卡里·理查森(Sha Carri Richardson)的缺席引发了关于大麻禁令（在美国许多州如今都是合法）的质疑；中长跑冠军获得者卡斯特尔·塞曼亚(Caster Semenya)不愿被迫降低她的自然睾酮水平，决定不参加比赛所引发的对女性特质的疑问；与此类似，关于比赛着装的争议引发了人们对现状的重新审视。
They have cast a spotlight on issues of sexism, the objectification of the female body, and who gets to decide what kind of dress is considered “appropriate” when it comes to athletic performance.
“The conversation has been a very long time coming,” said Angela Schneider, the director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies and herself a 1984 rowing Olympian.
“这场对话已经持续了很长时间，”国际奥林匹克研究中心(International Centre for Olympic Studies)主任安吉拉·施耐德(Angela Schneider)说，她曾是1984年奥运会的赛艇选手，
It is the latest iteration of a debate that has been waged in offices, colleges and high schools; in the halls of Congress; on airplanes and on television stations, as individuals have increasingly rebelled against the traditional and highly gendered dress codes imposed on them — be it the need for a suit and tie, the ban on leggings or a demand for high heels.
这是一场辩论的最新版本，这场辩论已经在办公室、大学和高中；在国会大厅；在飞机上和电视台展开，人们作为个体越来越反对强加于他们的传统的、高度性别化的着装规范——无论是西装领带的需求，还是紧身裤的禁令，或是穿高跟鞋的要求。
Sports may be the final frontier of the battle, in part because it has been built on the foundation of gender differentiation, including how that is expressed through dress, as well as an entrenched hierarchy and financial interests.
体育或许是这场斗争的终极前线，部分原因是体育本就建立在性别差异的基础之上，这种差异包括它如何通过着装体现出来，还有根深蒂固的等级和经济利益差别。
The #MeToo and social justice movements have made equity and inclusion clarion calls of the moment, and that extends to what we wear to express ourselves and the concept of uniformity — which may be less a relevant idea than an antiquated interpretation of the social contract, one defined by a historic power structure that was almost always male, and almost always white.
“我也是”(#MeToo)和社会公正运动让公平和包容成为当下的号角，这也延伸到了我们用来表达自己的穿着和对一致性的理解——与其说它是一个相关概念，不如说是对社会契约的一种过时解释，而在定义这种契约的历史权力结构里，几乎总是男性，几乎总是白人。
Though that tension is most obvious in these Olympics, it exists at every level, from Little League to the world championships. And though the issues around clothing and sports occasionally affect men (aquatic sports, especially swimming, water polo and diving, are among the few in which the male body is on display and often objectified more than the female body), they fall heavier on women.
尽管这种紧张关系在奥运会上最为明显，但它存在于体育的各个层面，从少年棒球联盟(Little League)到各种世界锦标赛。虽然围绕着装和运动的问题偶尔会影响男性（水上运动，尤其是游泳、水球和跳水，是少数几个展示男性身体，同时男性身体物化程度甚于女性的运动），但女性承受的负担更重。
“It feels a little bit extraordinary that we are still talking about what women can and can’t wear,” said Brandi Chastain, the former member of the Olympic soccer team who, at the Women’s World Cup in 1999, became famous — or notorious, depending on your point of view — for whipping off her shirt in celebration of her winning goal, to reveal her sports bra. “But at least we are talking about it.”
“我们仍在讨论女性可以穿什么，不可以穿什么，这多少让人感觉离谱，”前奥运足球队成员布兰迪·查斯坦(Brandi Chastain)说，在1999年女足世界杯上，她因为在庆祝打进决胜球时脱掉上衣，露出运动内衣而声名大噪（或是臭名昭著，取决于你的观点）。“但至少我们正在讨论。”
Finally, she thinks, the conclusions may actually stick.
最后，她认为，这些结论可能真的会一直存在下去。
A Brief History of People Freaking Out About What Women Wear in Sports
人们对女性运动着装的恐慌简史
For as long as there have been women in competitive sports, it often seems, there have been attempts to police what they wear: to make it more female or less; to hide the body because it may be too enticing for men to see or to show it off to entice men to pay to see it; to play down the idea of power and raise the idea of clichéd femininity.
自从女性开始参与竞技体育以来，似乎就一直有人试图监管她们的着装：要么更多女性化，要么更少女性化；要么遮住身体，因为它可能对男性太过诱惑，要么展示身体，以诱惑男性付费观看；要淡化力量的概念，强调老生常谈的女性气质。
Because sports are grounded in the physical, it is almost impossible to divorce the idea of sexuality from the idea of the athlete — no matter how absurd it is to think that when a woman, or a man for that matter, is in the race of their life, what they are thinking about is seducing spectators.
因为体育是基于体格的，所以几乎不可能将性征与运动员分开看待——不管认为一名女性（男性也一样）在一生最重要的竞赛里心怀引诱观众的念头是何其荒谬。
(All you have to do is listen to post-event interviews with Olympians to know what they are thinking about: winning. Period.)
（你只需听听奥运选手的赛后采访，就能了解他们到底想什么：赢下比赛。没别的了。）
This is especially clear in tennis. In 1919, Suzanne Lenglen shocked Wimbledon by wearing a calf-length skirt with no petticoat and corset; she was called “indecent.” It happened again 30 years later, when the American player Gertrude Moran wore a tennis dress that hit mid-thigh and again the Wimbledon powers that were declared she had brought “vulgarity and sin into tennis.”
这一点在网球比赛中尤为明显。1919年，苏珊·朗格伦(Suzanne Lenglen)在温布尔登网球公开赛(Wimbledon)上没穿衬裙和紧身胸衣，只穿了一条及膝的裙装，引发了震惊；她被称为“不雅”。30年后，同样的事情再次上演，美国选手格特鲁德·莫兰(Gertrude Moran)穿了一条露及大腿中部的网球裙，温网官员再次宣称，她把“粗俗和罪恶带到了网球运动里”。
In 1955, when she was 12, Billie Jean King was barred from a group shot at a tennis club because she was wearing shorts rather than a short skirt. Even in 2018, Serena Williams caused a stir by wearing a catsuit at the French Open.
1955年，12岁的比利·简·金(Billie Jean King)被禁止参加网球俱乐部的合影，因为她穿了短裤而不是短裙。哪怕是在2018年，塞雷娜·威廉姆斯(Serena Williams)也因为在法国网球公开赛(French Open)上穿紧身连体服引发了轰动。
It’s the Culture!
这就是它的文化！
At this point, an alien landing on Earth could be forgiven for being confused about the so-called skirts worn by women in tennis, field hockey, squash and lacrosse, since they resemble the vestige of a skirt — like a vestigial tail — more than an actual garment.
在这一点上，可以原谅着陆地球的外星人对网球、曲棍球、壁球和长曲棍球比赛中女性穿的所谓裙子感到困惑，因为它们更像裙子的退化——就像退化的尾巴——而不是一件真正的衣服。
Likewise, it would make no sense that men and women wear such strikingly different amounts of clothing in, say, track and field, whereas in sports like rowing, basketball and softball they wear close to the same thing.
同样，比如说，在田径运动中，男人和女人所穿衣服的数量有很大不同，而在划船、篮球和垒球等运动中，男人和女人穿的衣服几乎差不多，这也是没有道理的。
The answer, when sought, is usually “it’s the culture of the sport.” Culture, in this sense, being synonymous with history and legacy; with what got athletes involved in their sports in the first place; and with the symbols of what connects extraordinary players of today to those who came before.
答案通常是“这就是体育文化”。在这个意义上，文化是历史和遗产的同义词；这关系到运动员参与这种运动的原因；关系到将今天的杰出球员与前辈联系在一起的符号。
It’s the culture of the sport that gymnasts wear sparkly leotards. It’s the culture of the sport that beach volleyball players resemble beach bunnies. It’s the culture of the sport that skateboarders wear big T-shirts and baggy pants.
体操运动员闪闪发光的紧身衣是一种体育文化；沙滩排球运动员穿得像沙滩上的兔子是一种体育文化；滑板运动员肥大的T恤和宽松的裤子是一种体育文化。
“Culture is maybe used as a reason and an excuse, but that doesn’t make it right,” said Cassidy Krug, a member of the 2012 Olympic diving team.
2012年奥运会跳水队队员卡西迪·克鲁格(Cassidy Krug)说，“文化可能被用作理由和借口，但这并不意味着它就是正确的。”
It’s also the culture of sports to concentrate power in the hands of the governing bodies, which rule with an iron fist, and in the coaches below them. “When someone is holding your dreams in their hands, it’s very hard to push back against that,” said Megan Neyer, a sports and psychology consultant and former Olympic diver. For years athletes have been told to be seen and not heard, a situation that helped facilitate the sexual abuse recently revealed in many disciplines, and which has made the debate around dress even more charged.
把权力集中在铁腕管理的机构和下面的教练手中，也是体育的文化。“当有人把你的梦想握在手中时，你很难反击他们，”体育和心理咨询师、前奥运会跳水运动员梅根·尼尔(Megan Neyer)说。多年来，运动员们一直被告知，要被世人“看到”，而不是“听到”，这种情况助长了最近在许多比赛项目中曝光的性侵事件，也让围绕着装的辩论变得更加激烈。
As social media has allowed athletes to create their own power bases, however, the playing field has also changed, allowing them to speak up in a way they never could before.
然而，随着社交媒体允许运动员建立自己的权力基础，比赛环境也发生了变化，使得他们可以一种前所未有的方式表达自己的意见。
“There’s been a significant movement in the athlete’s rights movement,” said Ms. Schneider, of the Centre for Olympic Studies. “There has been a shift in power.”
“运动员的权利运动已经取得重大进展，”奥林匹克研究中心的施耐德说。“权力出现了转移。”
Who Gets to Decide
由谁来决定
The International Olympic Committee allows the National Olympic committees of each delegation to dictate their own rules when it comes to dress, with one caveat, according to Ms. Schneider: The result must “not be offensive.” But like office dress codes, which have generally retreated to the idea that employees simply dress “appropriately,” what may be seen as offensive or appropriate is highly subjective.
国际奥委会(International Olympic Committee)允许每个代表团的国家奥委会在着装方面制定自己的规则，但施耐德说，有一点要注意：其结果“不能令人反感”。但就像办公室着装规定一样，一般来说，那些可能被视为冒犯或得体的着装是高度主观的，到最后，员工的着装通常都会变成“得体”而已。
“It’s a very fluid word when it comes to women’s bodies and changes across cultures and religions,” Ms. Schneider said.
“当涉及女性的身体以及不同文化和宗教的变化时，这是一个非常灵活的词，”施耐德说。
The unitards worn by the German team were positioned as a political statement, but they were also an officially endorsed form of attire. It’s just that previously no gymnasts had chosen to wear them in a setting like the Olympics. In June, the rules of U.S.A. Gymnastics were changed to allow female gymnasts to wear shorts over their leotards — just like men.
德国队穿的紧身连体衣被定位为一种政治声明，但它们也是官方认可的服装形式。只是在此之前，没有哪个体操运动员选择在奥运会这样的场合这么穿。今年6月，美国体操协会修改了规则，允许女体操运动员在紧身连衣裤外穿短裤——就像男运动员一样。
Styles “evolve as social mores evolve,” said Girisha Chandraraj, the chief executive of GK Elite, which makes the leotards for women and men on 11 national teams, including the United States. That the women seem to prefer what seems like classic glamour (sparkles! shine!) and bare legs is their choice.
时尚“随着社会习俗的演变而演变”，GK Elite的首席执行官吉里沙·钱德拉杰(Girisha Chandraraj)说。该公司为包括美国在内的11支国家队的男女运动员生产紧身连衣裤。女性似乎更喜欢看起来经典的魅力（闪光！闪亮！），光腿是她们的选择。
Which is, in the end, what this should be about: choice. “We have seen in study after study that when an athlete feels better about what they are wearing, they perform better,” said Catherine Sabiston, a professor of sports and exercise psychology at the University of Toronto. But only the athlete can define what clothing makes them feel better. Maybe it’s shorts. Maybe it’s jammers. Maybe it’s a unitard.
最终，选择才是问题的关键。多伦多大学(University of Toronto)运动和运动心理学教授凯瑟琳·萨比斯顿(Catherine Sabiston)说：“我们在一项又一项研究中发现，当运动员对自己的穿着感觉更好时，他们的表现也会更好。”但只有运动员才能定义什么衣服能让他们感觉更好。也许是短裤。也许是运动服。也许是紧身衣。