2013.02.22丹妮卡-帕特里克即将成为史上最重要的运动员吗？

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Is Danica Patrick About to Become the Most Important Athlete Ever?
By Hampton Stevens
FEBRUARY 22, 2013
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If she wins the Daytona 500 on Sunday, she'll have earned a bigger victory than any female athlete before her—and could have a bigger cultural impact than almost any athlete, period.

danica patrick reuters hampton 900px.jpg
Reuter/Brian Blanco
Danica Patrick is already the most important female athlete on the planet. On Sunday she has a chance to become the most important athlete of all time. That's because Patrick averaged 196.434 mph on her qualifying lap at Daytona International Speedway, becoming the first female driver ever to win the pole position at a major NASCAR event. Before her, the best qualifying spot for a female driver was ninth, a mark set by Janet Guthrie in 1977.


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But Patrick didn't just win the pole. She did it with the fastest lap-time for any racer at Daytona since 1990, covering the 2½-mile track in a blistering 45.817 seconds. Much more significantly, she did it while qualifying for NASCAR's most important event: the season-opening Daytona 500.

Absurdly, the Daytona 500 is often called "the Super Bowl of racing," mostly because calling stuff the Super Bowl of anything has become a lazy way to describe any big, glitzy annual event. The Kentucky Derby is a better analogy for the 500 because it's a race, so more than two teams can win. Better yet, think of the Daytona 500 as more akin to the Masters in golf, at least in terms of prestige and social impact. Like the PGA's stop in Augusta, Daytona is NASCAR's richest and most prestigious contest, and no one can truly call themselves a great champion without winning at least one. Also like the Masters, the Daytona 500 has so much cultural currency that whoever wins could dramatically impact the world beyond sports. That is, if the winner happens to not be a white male.

The obvious comparison, then, would be between Patrick to Tiger Woods, who broke racial barriers by succeeding at the Masters. But if Patrick could win the race on Sunday, or any time during her career, it would arguably—depending on whether you think gender or racial equality matters more—be the most socially significant thing to happen in American sports since Jackie Robinson's integration of baseball, or ever.

There's no woman close to taking on men at Roland-Garros, Wimbledon, or in the NBA or NFL. Only motorsports offers the chance of gender equality.
At the very least, Patrick winning at Daytona would be the single greatest moment in the history of women in pro sports. She would in many ways have exceeded the accomplishments of any female athlete, ever—be it "Babe" Zaharias, Billie Jean King, or Brandi Chastain.


That's because the unique nature of motorsports allows Patrick to do what almost every other female athlete can't: compete equally with men. Due to racing's heavy reliance on technology, and because winning demands the fairly gender-neutral traits of endurance, eye-hand coordination, reaction time, and courage, Patrick can compete in the same venues, under the same rules, for the same trophies as men. That's what makes her opportunity so historically unique. No woman has ever done that in a major American sport. Beyond some hype about Michelle Wie a few years ago, there's never been a female golfer who even threatened to qualify for a men's PGA event, let alone win a Masters. There's no woman close to taking on men at Roland-Garros or Wimbledon, let alone competing in the NBA or NFL. Only motorsports offers the chance of gender equality.

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(The argument that racing doesn't count as sport because the drivers rely on fast cars to win is almost unworthy of mention. Suffice it to say that jockeys can't win without the help of their horses, but that doesn't mean they aren't athletes and it certainly doesn't mean that horseracing isn't a sport.)

If that chance at equality seems incongruous, given the stereotype of NASCAR as a redneck bastion, you wouldn't know it from the fans. Trackside or measured by merchandise sales, Patrick is deliriously popular. One season since her jump from the IndyCar Series—where she was the first women to win a race—the 30-year-old is not only a good bet to win NASCAR's rookie of the year; she is a near-lock to wrest the Most Popular Driver award from Dale Earnhardt Jr., the charismatic son of a legend who has practically owned the title for a decade.

At the track, her popularity is even more evident—especially in the passion from the throngs of young women and girls. They mob her, shriek, beg for autographs and photographs, and proudly wear hats and shirts emblazoned with her name, her image, or the black and day-glo green scheme of her #10 Go Daddy Chevrolet.

Jeff Gordon is one of NASCAR's greatest drivers, having won the Daytona 500 three times. For Sunday's race, he qualified second. He described himself as proud to start beside Patrick, and rightfully said her success can only grow the sport. But Gordon's own five-year-old daughter Ella might have given the most powerful illustration of what Patrick's accomplishments at Daytona can mean. Until Patrick won the pole, Ella told her dad, she didn't even know that girls could be racecar drivers too.

Hampton Stevens is a writer based in Kansas City, Missouri. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, ESPN the Magazine, Playboy, Gawker, Maxim, and many more publications.



丹妮卡-帕特里克即将成为史上最重要的运动员吗？
作者：Hampton Stevens
2013年2月22日

如果她在周日的代托纳500大奖赛中获胜，她将获得比之前任何一位女运动员都要大的胜利--而且可能比几乎任何一位运动员都要产生更大的文化影响。

丹妮卡-帕特里克路透社汉普顿900px.jpg
路透社/布莱恩-布兰科
丹妮卡-帕特里克已经是地球上最重要的女运动员。周日，她有机会成为有史以来最重要的运动员。这是因为帕特里克在代托纳国际赛车场的排位赛上平均速度为196.434英里/小时，成为有史以来第一位在大型纳斯卡赛事中赢得杆位的女车手。在她之前，女车手的最佳排位是第九位，由珍妮特-格思里在1977年创造的。


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纳斯卡。蓝色的美国会不会学会爱上改装赛车？
但帕特里克不仅仅是赢得了杆位。她创造了自1990年以来在代托纳赛道上的最快单圈时间，以45.817秒的惊人速度跑完了2.5英里的赛道。更重要的是，她是在为纳斯卡最重要的赛事--赛季开幕的代托纳500赛--进行排位赛时做到这一点。

荒谬的是，代托纳500大赛经常被称为 "赛车界的超级碗"，这主要是因为把任何东西称为 "超级碗 "已经成为描述任何大型、华丽的年度活动的一种偷懒方式。肯塔基德比是一个更好的比喻，因为它是一场比赛，所以不止两支球队可以获胜。更好的是，把代托纳500英里赛看作是更类似于高尔夫的大师赛，至少在声望和社会影响方面是这样。就像美国职业高尔夫球协会在奥古斯塔的比赛一样，代托纳是纳斯卡最富有和最有声望的比赛，没有人能够在没有赢得至少一次比赛的情况下真正称得上是伟大的冠军。也和美国大师赛一样，代托纳500英里大奖赛有如此多的文化货币，无论谁获胜都会对体育以外的世界产生巨大影响。也就是说，如果获胜者恰好不是白人男性。

那么，明显的比较是帕特里克与泰格-伍兹之间的比较，后者通过在美国大师赛上的成功打破了种族障碍。但是，如果帕特里克能在周日或她职业生涯的任何时候赢得比赛，可以说--取决于你是否认为性别或种族平等更重要--是自杰基-罗宾逊融入棒球以来美国体育界发生的最具社会意义的事情，或者说是有史以来。

在罗兰-加洛斯(Roland-Garros)、温布尔登(Wimbledon)、NBA或NFL中，没有女性能与男性对抗。只有赛车运动提供了性别平等的机会。
至少，帕特里克在代托纳获胜将是女性在职业体育史上的一个最伟大的时刻。她将在许多方面超过任何女性运动员的成就，无论是 "贝比 "扎哈里亚斯、比利-金还是布兰迪-查斯坦。


这是因为赛车运动的独特性质使帕特里克能够做到几乎所有其他女运动员都做不到的事情：与男性平等竞争。由于赛车对技术的严重依赖，并且由于获胜需要相当不分性别的耐力、手眼协调、反应时间和勇气等特征，帕特里克可以在同样的场地、同样的规则下，与男性竞争同样的奖杯。这就是她的机会在历史上如此独特的原因。在美国的一项主要运动中，从来没有女性做到过这一点。除了几年前对米歇尔-维(Michelle Wie)的一些炒作之外，从来没有一个女性高尔夫球员甚至威胁要获得参加男子PGA赛事的资格，更不用说赢得大师赛了。没有任何女性能在罗兰-加洛斯或温布尔登与男性对抗，更不用说在NBA或NFL中竞争了。只有赛车运动提供了性别平等的机会。

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(赛车不算是体育，因为车手要靠快车取胜，这种说法几乎不值一提。我只想说，如果没有马的帮助，骑师是不可能获胜的，但这并不意味着他们不是运动员，当然也不意味着赛马不是一项运动）。

如果这种平等的机会看起来不协调，鉴于纳斯卡是一个乡下人的堡垒的刻板印象，你不会从球迷那里知道。不管是在赛道上还是在商品销售上，帕特里克都非常受欢迎。30岁的帕特里克从印地赛车系列赛中脱颖而出，成为第一个赢得比赛的女性，她不仅是赢得纳斯卡年度最佳新秀的一个很好的赌注；她几乎可以从小戴尔-恩哈特手中夺取最受欢迎车手奖，这位富有魅力的传奇之子实际上已经拥有这个头衔十年了。

在赛场上，她的受欢迎程度更加明显--特别是来自成群的年轻妇女和女孩的热情。他们围着她，尖叫着，乞求签名和拍照，并自豪地戴着印有她的名字、她的形象或她的10号Go Daddy雪佛兰的黑色和日绿色方案的帽子和衬衫。

杰夫-戈登是纳斯卡最伟大的车手之一，曾三次赢得代托纳500英里赛。在周日的比赛中，他获得了第二名。他形容自己为能在帕特里克身边起步而感到自豪，并理所当然地说，她的成功只能使这项运动发展。但是戈登自己五岁的女儿艾拉可能最有力地说明了帕特里克在代托纳的成就意味着什么。艾拉告诉她爸爸，在帕特里克赢得杆位之前，她甚至不知道女孩也可以成为赛车手。

汉普顿-史蒂文斯是驻密苏里州堪萨斯城的作家。他的作品曾出现在《大西洋》、《ESPN杂志》、《花花公子》、《Gawker》、《Maxim》以及其他许多出版物上。