Since distances 100, 200, 400, and 800 m were NOT changed to 100, 250, 500, 1000m; there were no oppertunity to delink them from 'yards, furlong, and mile'.
Regards,
Brij B. Vij TIME: to think Metric!<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <And Calendar too>
From: Harry Wyeth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [USMA:24334] Track events in meters
Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 03:12:37 -0800
Although most, if not all states in the US now use meters for measuring running events, it should be pointed out that when this happened for high school events, it was some time AFTER colleges had converted. The international standard for the middle distance event is 1500 m, and this distance is used in the Olympics, in international meets, and in college meets. High schools, however, in order to either preserve the sense that the "mile" was still being run, or to make their old "mile" records still meaningful, or to achieve starts and finishes at the same place on the track, decided to have a 1600 m event instead. So the 1600 is sort of a bastard event as far as I am concerned, and it leads lots of old timers to still think and say "mile". It sort of makes sense, since the other running events in shorter races are 100, 200, 400, and 800 m. I think in speed skating on ice they use 500 m as the short event as well as 1500 m.
For longer events, colleges also use 5000 m, but high schools, at least in Calif., use a "double mile" or 3200 m. One reason, maybe good, for this is to shorten the time of track meets, as it takes a long time to run these distance events in separate flights for girls and boys.
HARRY WYETH
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