Not so long ago, most people didn’t know who Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce was going to become. She was just an average high school athlete. There was every indication that she was just another Jamaican teenager without much of a future. However, one person wanted to change this. Stephen Francis observed then eighteenyearold Shelly Ann at a track meet and was convinced that he had seen the beginnings of true greatness. Her times were not exactly impressive, but even so, he sensed there was something trying to get out, something the other coaches had overlooked when they had assessed her and found her lacking. He decided to offer Shelly Ann a place in his very strict training sessions. Their cooperation quickly produced results, and a few years later at Jamaica’s Olympic trials in early 2008, Shelly Ann, who at that time only ranked number 70 in the world, beat Jamaica’s unchallenged queen of the sprint.
不久前，大多数人还不知道雪莉·安·弗雷泽·普赖斯会成为什么样的人，她只是一个普通的高中运动员。种种迹象表明，她只是一个没有前途的牙买加少女。然而，有一个人想改变这一切。斯蒂芬·弗朗西斯在一次田径比赛中注意到了当时18岁的雪莉·安，并确信自己已经看到了真正伟大的开端。她的表现并不令人印象深刻，但即便如此，他还是感觉到有什么东西在试图摆脱困境，而其他教练在评估她并发现她的不足时却忽视了这一点。弗朗西斯决定让雪莉·安参加他严格的训练课程。他们的合作很快取得了成果，几年后，在2008年初的牙买加奥运会选拔赛上，当时世界排名第70的雪莉·安击败了牙买加不可战胜的短跑皇后。
“Where did she come from?” asked an astonished sprinting world, before concluding that she must be one of those onehit wonders that spring up from time to time, only to disappear again without signs. But Shelly Ann was to prove that she was anything but a onehit wonder. At the Beijing Olympics she swept away any doubts about her ability to perform consistently by becoming the first Jamaican woman ever to win the 100 metres Olympic gold. She did it again one year on at the World Championships in Berlin, becoming world champion with a time of 10.73 - the fourth fastest time ever.
“她从哪里来？”吃惊的短跑世界问，在得出结论之前，她一定是那些时不时涌现出来的一鸣惊人的奇迹之一，最后消失得无影无踪。但雪莉·安要证明她决不是昙花一现。在北京奥运会上，她成为有史以来第一位获得100米奥运金牌的牙买加女性，消除了人们对她是否有能力始终如一表现的怀疑。一年后，她在柏林世锦赛上再次夺冠，以10.73秒的成绩成为世界冠军，这是有史以来第四快的成绩。
Shelly Ann is a little woman with a big smile. She has a mental toughness that did not come about by chance. Her journey to becoming the fastest woman on earth has been anything but smooth and effortless. She grew up in one of Jamaica’s toughest innercity communities known as Waterhouse, where she lived in a oneroom apartment, sleeping four in a bed with her mother and two brothers. Waterhouse, one of the poorest communities in Jamaica, is a really violent and overpopulated place. Several of Shelly Ann’s friends and family were caught up in the killings; one of her cousins was shot dead only a few streets away from where she lived. Sometimes her family didn’t have enough to eat. She ran at the school championships barefooted because she couldn’t afford shoes. Her mother Maxime, one of a family of fourteen, had been an athlete herself as a young girl but, like so many other girls in Waterhouse, had to stop after she had her first baby. Maxime’s early entry into the adult world with its responsibilities gave her the determination to ensure that her kids would not end up in Waterhouse’s roundabout of poverty. One of the first things Maxime used to do with Shelly Ann was taking her to the track, and she was ready to sacrifice everything.
雪莉·安是一个笑容灿烂的小女人，她有一种并非偶然的精神韧性。她成为世界上跑得最快的女性的旅程绝不是一帆风顺和轻松的。她在牙买加最困难的内城社区之一水屋长大，住在一间单间公寓里，与母亲和两个兄弟睡在四张床上。水屋是牙买加最贫穷的社区之一，有太多的暴力，人口过剩。雪莉·安的几个朋友和家人卷入了一起谋杀；她的一个堂兄弟在离她住处只有几条街的地方被枪杀。有时她的家人吃不饱。她光着脚参加学校比赛，因为买不起鞋。她的母亲马克西姆是一个十四口之家的一员，小时候也是一名运动员，但和水屋的许多其他女孩一样，她在生下第一个孩子后不得不停止运动。马克西姆很早就进入了成人世界，肩负着成人的责任，这让她下定决心，确保自己的孩子不会最终陷入水屋的贫困困境。马克西姆曾经为雪莉·安做的第一件事就是带她去赛道，为她准备牺牲一切。
It didn’t take long for Shelly Ann to realize that sports could be her way out of Waterhouse. On a summer evening in Beijing in 2008, all those long, hard hours of work and commitment finally bore fruit. The barefoot kid who just a few years previously had been living in poverty, surrounded by criminals and violence, had written a new chapter in the history of sports.
没过多久，雪莉·安就意识到运动可能是她走出水屋的出路。2008年，在北京的一个夏夜，所有这些漫长而艰苦的工作和承诺终于取得了成果。这个几年前还生活在贫困之中，周围充斥着犯罪和暴力的赤脚孩子，为体育史写下了新的篇章。
But Shelly Ann’s victory was far greater than that.The night she won Olympic gold in Beijing, the routine murders in Waterhouse and the drug wars in the neighbouring streets stopped. The dark cloud above one of the world’s toughest criminal neighbourhoods simply disappeared for a few days. “I have so much fire burning for my country,” Shelly said. She plans to start a foundation for homeless children and wants to build a community centre in Waterhouse. She hopes to inspire the Jamaicans to lay down their weapons. She intends to fight to make it a woman’s as well as a man’s world.
但雪利安的胜利远不止于此。她在北京赢得奥运金牌的当晚，水屋的例行谋杀案和附近街道上的毒品战争停止了。世界上最恶劣的犯罪社区之一上空的乌云消失了几天。雪莉说：“我要为我的国家燃烧更多的火。”。她计划成立一个无家可归儿童基金会，并希望在水屋建立一个社区中心。她希望激励牙买加人放下武器，努力使之成为一个女人和男人共同拥有的世界。
As Muhammad Ali puts it, “Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them. A desire, a dream, a vision.” One of the things Shelly Ann can be proud of is her understanding of this truth.
正如穆罕默德·阿里所说，“冠军不是来自健身房，冠军源于他们的内心深处。一种渴望、一个梦想、一种愿景。”雪莉·安值得骄傲的一件事是她理解了这一真理。
