My theory is that too much is going on too fast in the news, not just of
the Olympics, for commentators to convert, so they just leave the values
from the international feed in metric units. Furthermore, I think that
Americans as a whole are becoming more comfortable with metric units.
Many sports (swimming, diving, track, etc.) use them even here in the
United States. Finally, the U.S. is being swamped by international media,
which come to us from the large number of internet and cable channels.
I caught this complaint on one site:
"Why are the Olympics players' info in the metric system? I'm watching
the volleyball replay, and they are showing players' info in meters: so
and so is 1.98 meters tall. I thought NBC Sports was an American channel.
I don't want to do math."
To this luddite, I say: Don't do math. Think in metric! You'll be
surprise how quickly you forget the complicated legacy units.
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