Harry,
May I echo what you have written. May I also draw to attention that Zola Budd always trained using kilometres. _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Harry Wyeth Sent: 08 July 2011 04:37 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:50832] Letter to editor re: Zola Budd running article] This sent to Sacramento Bee. HARRY WYETH -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Zola Budd running article Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:35:14 -0700 From: Harry Wyeth <mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Mr. Bennett-Smith; I enjoyed your article on Zola Budd (Pierterse). I am old enough to have watched the 1984 Olympic 3000 m run where she and Mary Decker collided. But...will you and others please recognize that running events (at least those run on tracks, and lots which are not) are no longer measured in yards and miles. This runner competed in an 8 km race, period. I cannot understand why sports writers keep injecting obsolete mile measurements, as you did in referring to the race as 4.97 miles. Any reader interested enough in the subject to read your article would know how far 8 kilometers is. I doubt that the Bee reports 1500 m races as being so-and-so yards, or some decimal part of a mile. Why should a road race be treated differently? Dual measurements help no one and just confuse things. I hope you will report metric events accurately in the future. Thanks again for the nice article. HARRY WYETH Grass Valley
