滑板成为东京奥运会项目

A teenager leaps into the air on his skateboard before thudding to the ground.

一名少年带着滑板一起跃起，然后落地。

Nearby, his friend rotates a board on his head while another uses zig-zags down concrete steps.

旁边，他的一个朋友用头顶旋转着一块滑板，另一个人则滑着滑板Z字形下着水泥台阶。

It's close to midnight and these skaters have gathered at Osaka's Triangle Park in the city's Amerikamura (American Village) neighborhood.

快到午夜了，这些滑板爱好者聚集在大阪美村附近的三角公园里。

Flanked on all sides by apparel shops and independent boutiques, this has long been a hub for young creatives.

这里到处都是服装店和独立精品店，长期以来一直是年轻创意人士的聚集地。

But it also has a near-constant police presence.

但这里也有几乎一直守卫的警察。

"From the outside, this park looks like it belongs to young people, but when we skateboard here, the police always come," says skater Taiichiro Nakamura, better known as "Chopper."

“从外面看，这个公园好像是属于年轻人的，但当我们在这里玩滑板时，警察总是会来，”溜冰者中村泰一郎说，他的绰号是“斧头哥”。

"So while this place is meant to represent freedom, it's not quite the case."

“所以说，虽然这里代表着自由，但其实并非如此。”

For the past 30 years, Chopper has been part of the Osaka Daggers, a skate collective named after a gang in the 1986 American movie "Thrashin."

在过去的30年里，斧头哥一直是大阪匕首团的一员，大阪匕首团是以1986年美国电影《Thrashin》中的一个黑帮命名的。

When he started coming to Triangle Park in the 1980s, the crew often clashed with local youths -- and were branded rebels and misfits by older, more conservative parts of Japanese society.

当他在20世纪80年代开始来到三角公园时，成员们经常与当地的年轻人发生冲突，并被日本社会中更年长、更保守的部分人打上反叛和格格不入的烙印。

Today, the Osaka Daggers is a diverse group of artists and skateboarders of all ages.

而如今，大阪匕首团已经成为了融合各个年龄段的艺术家和滑板者的多元化团体。

And with skateboarding making its Olympic debut this Sunday, a once-niche counterculture is now a global commodity and high-fashion obsession.

随着滑板在本周日首次亮相奥运会，一种曾经的小众反主流文化现在引发了全球商品和高级时尚的痴迷。

But while purists might see the prospect of mainstream acceptance as a threat to this once-underground culture, Chopper welcomed the development.

但是，虽然纯粹主义者可能会把主流接受的前景视为对这种一度地下文化的威胁，但斧头哥很喜欢看到这种发展。

"I don't think our alternative skateboarding culture (will be) changed by the Olympics," he says.

“我想我们的滑板文化并不会被奥运会改变，”他说。

"When skateboarding became an Olympic sport it expanded the scene.”

“滑板成为奥运会项目后，它的局面会更大。”

"People who believe in old-school styles aren't being forced to change their ways just because skateboarding became an Olympic sport."

“那些喜欢老式滑板的人们也不会因为它成为奥运会项目就必须得改变自己的风格。”

Skateboarding can be traced back to 1950s America, where West Coast surfers started attaching wheels to wooden boards in order to "surf" on land.

滑板运动可以追溯到20世纪50年代的美国，那时西海岸的冲浪者们为了在陆地上冲浪而在木板上装上了轮子。

It flourished in the 1960s, with stars from Clint Eastwood to Katherine Hepburn pictured trying their hand at the sport.

这项运动在20世纪60年代蓬勃发展，很多明星都被拍到尝试滑板，例如柯林特·伊斯特伍德和凯瑟琳·赫本。

In 1965, ABC televised the National Skateboard Championships, which saw international skaters battled it out for prizes of $500.

1965年时，美国广播公司电视转播了全国滑板锦标赛，国际滑板选手为争夺500美元的奖金展开了激烈的角逐。

And in decades since, this underground subculture and casual hobby has transformed into a competitive profession and multi-billion dollar industry.

几十年来，这种地下亚文化和业余爱好已经转变为一个有竞争力的职业和数十亿美元的产业。

In Japan, the trend took longer catch on, but the All Japan Skateboard Association, founded in 1982, helped to gradually introduce the activity through surfing centers. Chopper, meanwhile, got his start in skateboarding in the late 1990s when -- aged 15 -- he rented his younger brother's board for 500 yen ($5) a week.

在日本，这一潮流流行的时间较长，但1982年成立的全日本滑板协会通过冲浪中心逐渐引入了这项活动，与此同时，斧头哥在20世纪90年代末开始玩滑板，当时他15岁，他以每周500日元(5美元)的价格租下了弟弟的滑板。

He imitated the American skaters he saw on grainy VHS tapes, which, he said, took about six months to make it to Japan after their US release.

他模仿了他在录像带上看到的美国滑冰选手，他说这些录像带在美国发行后花了大约6个月才传到日本。

Encouraged to pursue an unconventional career path by his father, Chopper practiced skating obsessively, eventually turning his hobby into a profession.

追求非传统的事业得到父亲的鼓励后，斧头哥沉迷于滑板练习中，最终渐渐把爱好变成了自己的职业。

After performing well at national competitions, he soon found posters of himself pasted on the walls of local skate shops.

在全国比赛中表现出色后，他很快发现自己的海报贴在了当地滑板商店的墙上。

He was then offered a column in a monthly magazine, where he balanced crude jokes and anarchic commentary with more serious explorations of the art of skating.

后来，一家月刊给他提供了一个专栏，在那里，他在粗俗的笑话和无政府主义的评论之间找到了平衡，并对滑板艺术进行了更严肃的探索。

Chopper's musings -- coupled with his punk rock look and ethos -- earned him an underground following.

斧头哥的思想—以及他朋克摇滚的装扮和观念—为他赢得了一批地下的追随者。

Kids interested in skateboarding often bypassed the Tokyo scene and headed to Osaka, forming the foundation of what is now the Osaka Daggers.

对滑板感兴趣的孩子们常常会绕过东京，前往大阪，形成了现在的大阪匕首队。

After decades in Japan's underground, skateboarding experienced a global breakthrough in 2015.

在日本地下圈流行几十年之后，滑板运动终于于2015年迎来了突破。

As part of an initiative that sees host countries propose new sports for the Games, Tokyo 2020 organizers included skating on its shortlist.

作为主办国为奥运会提出新项目倡议的一部分，2020年东京奥运会的组织者将滑板列入了候选名单。

The next year, the proposal was formally accepted by the International Olympic Committee alongside surfing, karate and climbing.

第二年，国际奥委会正式接受了这项提议，同时接受的还有冲浪、空手道和攀岩。

History will be made on Sunday at Tokyo's Ariake Urban Sports Park, as the very first skaters to call themselves Olympians kick off the men's street skating competition.

历史将于周日在东京江东区城市体育公园创造，第一批作为奥运选手的男子街头滑板比赛将拉开帷幕。

But when it comes to mainstream acceptance in Japan, there's still a long way to go, according to Daisuke Hayakawa, coach of the country's Olympic skateboarding team.

但日本奥运滑板队教练早川大辅表示，要让滑板在日本被主流接受，还有很长的路要走。

While the excitement around the Games has encouraged more parents to take their kids to skateboarding class, he said, skating in public areas is still frowned upon.

他说，虽然奥运会带来的兴奋鼓舞了更多的父母带孩子去上滑板课，但在公共场所玩滑板仍然是不允许的。

"There still aren't enough skate parks where we can skate without disturbing people," he said.

“能够让我们不扰民地去玩的专门的滑板公园还是太少，”他说。

"If you skate on the street, you have to share that space with people walking by -- who will get the impression that skateboarding is noisy, dangerous or scary.

“而如果在街头玩，就会遇到行人——他们会觉得滑板很吵，很危险或者吓人。”

"That's why people still don't have positive attitudes towards skaters."

“所以很多人对滑板者的看法并不积极。”

Nonetheless, compared to the late 1990s, when Chopper and his crew started out, skaters are increasingly part of Japan's urban fabric -- despite the ongoing police presence at Osaka's Triangle Park.

尽管如此，跟20世纪90年代斧头哥和他的成员们刚开始的时候比起来，滑板者还是日益成为了日本都市的一部分——尽管大阪的三角公园还是有警察守卫。

"Now we have more kids, women and elderly people skateboarding because of the Olympics," Chopper said.

“如今，有更多的孩子，女性和老年人也因为奥运会会加入到滑板运动当中，”斧头哥说道。

"The scene is definitely becoming more diverse."

“这项运动肯定会变得更加多元化。”

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