British Vision Issue 49 运动员的生日对其事业的成败有影响吗？

Who's the odd one out of these four: Is it the footballer Wayne Rooney, The cricketer Andrew Flintoff, The Olympic Gold medal heptathlete Denise Lewis? Or the Conservative MP and legendary¹ launching Nicholas Soames.

It is, of course, Nicholas Soames, because all of the others were born between September and December.

New research, this is the serious bit, shows that children born in the latter part of the academic year, that's from June to August are less likely to become elite² athletes. It's simply because they are smaller than others in their school year who have been picked to join teams and academies. Richard Watson reports.

Yes!

I think I was one of the lucky ones. I very quickly was picked for the football team, the basketball team, and obviously when the cross-country season started in the middle of the winter, I found I was pretty good at it. er, possibly because I was a bit taller, a bit stronger, a bit quicker and than a lot of my pals³, and I think that then I guess for me, cemented my love of sport straight away. And I wanted to be involved.

6 times gold medalist and former world record-holder, Steve Cram⁴, the man who went on to break 3 world records in 19 days, one of Britain's most successful ever athletes, has always suspected of being born in October gave him a big advantage.

I think I with, er, you know I was fairly tall because that helped me, with my running certainly helped me with getting on the basketball team and football. And I might have been lucky in little bit in skill, to be honest, but you know, I was physically⁵ developed enough to stand out at the age of 11 or 12. And ,and I think that's, what teachers tend to look for. Don't they? At that age, that they are looking for the ones, who just look a little bit more developed, a bit quicker, a bit stronger, they get them in the team.

The report from a new think-tank headed by Steve Cram, has correlated performance against age. It says that 67 percent of the football association's youth academy were born between September and November, while just 2 percent were born between Junes to August. In athletics⁶, 65 percent of top teenage performers were born in the autumn term, while 8 percent were born in the summer. And the team noted⁷ that a 14-year-old boy born in September will be on average 7 centimeters taller and 5.7 kilograms heavier than a boy born in August.

I think the research that is actually quite startling in terms of the strength of the evidence. You know, The high percentages of people who do go onto a successful career is born in literally⁸ 3, 4 months of the year.

This is one of the government's flagship sports colleges, Landon School, just a couple of miles from the 2012 Olympic Site in London. Across the country, close to a billion pounds has been invested in school sport over the past 4 years. The proportion of the children doing more than 2 hours of P.E. a week has increased from 25 to over 80 percent. But there's still a concern that an early focus on teen selection is teaching failure based on nothing more than physical strength linked to date of birth.

What we are very concerned about is that children all dropping out of sport and recreational exercises because they are being overlooked. And we know that there are more and more people in the country who are becoming obese⁹, we want people to enjoy healthy and active lives. And if we can give them every opportunity taking part in sport at school level and not be overlooked, we very firmly believe that they would then go on; maybe not to represent the country but to exercise regularly throughout their lifestyles. So it's about winning more medals but it's also crucially about improving the level of participation¹⁰ in sport across the whole society.

The sports asserted here in Landon School are probably second to none. But if this academic research due to be published tomorrow is correct, that implies that even in schools like this, more could be done to help children who were born in the early part of the year. But the key question is in pouty¹¹ terms, what could or should be done about it?

1 legendary   

adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学）

参考例句：

• Legendary stories are passed down from parents to children.传奇故事是由父母传给孩子们的。
• Odysseus was a legendary Greek hero.奥狄修斯是传说中的希腊英雄。

2 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

3 pals   

n.朋友( pal的名词复数 )；老兄；小子；（对男子的不友好的称呼）家伙

参考例句：

• We've been pals for years. 我们是多年的哥们儿了。
• CD 8 positive cells remarkably increased in PALS and RP(P CD8+细胞在再生脾PALS和RP内均明显增加(P 来自互联网

4 cram   

v.填塞，塞满，临时抱佛脚，为考试而学习

参考例句：

• There was such a cram in the church.教堂里拥挤得要命。
• The room's full,we can't cram any more people in.屋里满满的，再也挤不进去人了。

5 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

6 athletics   

n.运动，体育，田径运动

参考例句：

• When I was at school I was always hopeless at athletics.我上学的时候体育十分糟糕。
• Our team tied with theirs in athletics.在田径比赛中，我们队与他们队旗鼓相当。

7 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

8 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

9 obese   

adj.过度肥胖的，肥大的

参考例句：

• The old man is really obese,it can't be healthy.那位老人确实过于肥胖了，不能算是健康。
• Being obese and lazy is dangerous to health.又胖又懒危害健康。

10 participation   

n.参与，参加，分享

参考例句：

• Some of the magic tricks called for audience participation.有些魔术要求有观众的参与。
• The scheme aims to encourage increased participation in sporting activities.这个方案旨在鼓励大众更多地参与体育活动。

11 pouty   

adj.撅嘴的，容易生气的

参考例句：

• She also gave up green locks, pouty lips and cheekbones of a supermodel. 她同时放弃了绿发，翘起的嘴唇，还有超级模特般的颧骨。 来自电影对白