Runners in a marathon were left with a bad taste in their mouths when they mistook free bars of soap for energy bars in an incident that’s been put down to the language barrier.
由于没有中文标识，发生了一个小插曲：马拉松选手误把组委会免费提供的肥皂当作了能量块吃下去，嘴里留下了怪味。
Some 20,000 runners at the Qingyuan marathon in south China’s Guangdong province received a gift pack shortly after they crossed the finishing line, the People’s Daily newspaper reports.
据报道，参加中国南方广东省清远马拉松比赛的约2万名选手在冲过终点线后，收到了一份礼包。
Hoping to bite into what they thought was an energy bar, athletes instead got a mouthful of what turned out to be fruit-perfumed moisturising soap. Witnesses report many bars of soap, all with one bite missing, dumped at the roadside, and the problem appears to come from the fact that the soap packaging was written in English, which many runners did not understand, the paper’s Chinese-language report noted.
以为是赛后甜点，很多选手一口咬下去，才发现居然是水果香味的保湿香皂。据目击者称，很多被咬过一口的肥皂块丢弃在路边。而这个问题的发生，好像是因为该肥皂的外包装是英文的，有许多选手都不认识。人民日报中文版报道。
The organisers of last Sunday’s race were quick to apologise. "The packs of soap were indeed like food packaging. It is a negligent mistake on our part," an official told Yangtse Evening Post. There was also some concern over the level of injuries at the event, with 12,200 runners needing medical treatment or assistance during and after the race. It’s not clear how many were the result of the soap incident.
上周日这场比赛的组织方很快就此事道歉。某负责人告诉扬子晚报，“这些香皂的包装确实很像食品包装，这是我们的疏忽。”同时，本次比赛中有12200人次在赛时和赛中接受医疗服务或协助，这个受伤级别也引起了一些关注。目前尚不清楚有多少人是因肥皂事件所致。
Chinese social media users piled in to mock those who had taken a bite out of their "energy bars". One Weibo user urged the organisers to contact the Guinness Book of Records: "More than 10,000 people together eat soap. China is a land full of wonders". Another asked: "Why give them a bar of soap, to take a shower at the halfway point?" However, some made the point that the language barrier shouldn’t have been a problem. "Your life isn’t good if your English isn’t good", one Weibo user said philosophically.
中国社交媒体上很多用户嘲弄那些吃了一口肥皂“能量棒”的选手。一位微博用户敦促主办方联系人吉尼斯记录：“超过10000人同时吃肥皂。中国真是一个神奇的土地。”另一人问：“为什么给他们发肥皂，难道在中途要洗澡？”然而，一些人认为语言障碍不应该是一个问题。 一位微博用户很明智的说，“如果你的英文不好，你的生活也好不到哪去。”
