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Great Britain came home from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics with just one gold medal - two fewer than Kazakhstan - and a wounded national psyche. Sixteen years later, Team GB has been overhauled and rebuilt thanks to a machine-like agency flush with cash from the U.K. lottery that grooms British athletes. The result could be a record-setting performance here for the home squad. 在6月举行的奥运选拔赛上，英国田径运动员恩尼斯在庆祝胜利。1996年亚特兰大奥运会，大不列颠只带回了一枚金牌──比哈萨克斯坦少两枚──和一颗受伤的民族心灵。16年后，得益于一个从国家彩票基金拿到充裕资金、专门培养英国运动员的机器般精密运作的机构，英国奥运代表团（Team GB）已经彻底改头换面。结果就是英国队有望在自家主场实现创纪录的表现。 Britain's quiet rise in Olympic competition over the past decade and a half - from winning a paltry 15 medals in 1996 to scoring 47 in 2008 - is a textbook turnaround story. The U.K. has turbocharged its Olympic apparatus in anticipation of the London Games, filling the coffers of the publicly chartered agency that grooms athletes; recruiting foreign-born competitors known as 'Plastic Brits'; importing top coaches; and ruthlessly focusing the country's efforts on events where it could win medals. 从1996年微不足道的15枚奖牌到2008年的47枚，英国过去15年在奥运会赛场的悄然崛起就是扭转乾坤的典型案例。为备战伦敦奥运会，英国已经全方位巩固自己的奥运配置，为政府特许的运动员训练机构注入资金，招募被称为“塑料英国人”（Plastic Brits）的出生在国外的运动员，引进顶级教练，并狠抓有机会赢得奖牌的项目。 | 
