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Beneath Olympic ice
冬奥会的冰是怎么“冻”出来的？
Although the weather is very hot now, the carnival of ice and snow is getting closer. The preparation work for Beijing Winter Olympic Games, which are expected to begin on Feb 4, 2022, has entered its final stage. In January, the ice-making work on the “Ice Ribbon”, a landmark venue for the Beijing Winter Olympics, was completed.
虽然现在天气十分炎热，但是冰雪的狂欢日益临近。北京冬奥会将于2022年2月4日正式开幕，目前筹办工作已进入最后冲刺阶段。今年1月，北京冬奥会标志性场馆“冰丝带”已完成制冰工作。
In the Winter Olympics, where races can be won or lost by a small time gap, tiny imperfections in the ice can make all the difference. “It’s not just a hunk of ice like you’d normally think of, like ice cubes sitting in your freezer,” Kenneth Golden, a US mathematician who studies the structures of ice, told Smithsonian magazine. “It’s a much more fascinating and complex substance than people would normally think.”
在冬奥会中，比赛胜负可能就在分秒之间，冰面上的小瑕疵会产生重要影响。“这不是你平时以为的一大块冰，比如冰箱里的冰块，”研究冰结构的美国数学家肯尼思·戈尔登在接受《史密森杂志》采访时表示。“这种物质比大家平时想的要有趣和复杂得多。”
The first step for building any rink is to purify the water to remove dissolved solids like salts and minerals. Such impurities don’t fit in the regular hexagonal structure of ice that forms as water freezes. The more pure the water is, the more consistent the ice surface, according to Smithsonian.
建造任何滑冰场的第一步是提纯水，去除溶解在其中的固体，比如盐和矿物质。这些杂质与水冻结时所形成的冰内正六边形结构不匹配。水越纯净，冰面就越平滑稳固，《史密森杂志》介绍到。
In addition to the need for excellence in the raw materials of ice-making, technology is also very important. As one of the most advanced technologies for winter sports venues, a carbon dioxide (CO2) cooling technology has been applied on a large scale for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. CO2 is not new when it comes to ice-making. For more than 100 years, CO2 has been used as a refrigerant in Europe. However, it has been gradually replaced by the synthetic refrigerant, like Freon, according to Xinhua.
除了要有优质的制冰原材料，科技也至关重要。作为冬季运动场馆最先进的技术之一，二氧化碳跨临界直冷制冰技术在北京冬奥会进行大规模应用。用二氧化碳制冰并不新鲜。据新华社报道，早在100多年前，二氧化碳就被作为制冷剂在欧洲使用。但它逐渐被人工合成制冷剂氟利昂所取代。
With increasing attention toward climate change, the old refrigerant has come into use again. As an element of the atmosphere, CO2 doesn’t damage the ozone layer. Although CO2 is a greenhouse gas, its greenhouse effect is much lower than that of other synthetic refrigerants.
随着人们对气候变化的日益关注，这种古老的制冷剂被再次使用。二氧化碳作为大气的组成成分之一，不会破坏臭氧层。二氧化碳虽是温室气体，但温室效应远低于其他人工合成制冷剂。
The Winter Olympics venues adopted CO2 instead of Freon as a refrigerant in ice-making, which will reduce carbon dioxide emissions greatly.
北京冬奥会场馆采用二氧化碳作为制冷剂，而非氟利昂，将大大降低二氧化碳排放量。
“That’s very good for the whole sustainability of the Games,” William Freyr Huntingdon-Williams, the first secretary and deputy head of mission at the Embassy of Iceland, told Xinhua.
“这对整个冬奥会可持续发展是非常好的，”冰岛大使馆一等秘书、使团副团长威廉·弗莱尔·亨廷登·威廉姆斯在接受新华社采访时表示。
“We believe these technological innovations will bring Beijing 2022 to spectators all over the world in a more spectacular way,” Gao Bo from the media operations department of the Organizing Committee of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games told Xinhua.
“我们相信这些技术创新将让北京冬奥会更加精彩地呈现在全球观众面前，”北京冬奥组委媒体运行部高博在接受新华社采访时表示。
