WHEN DID TRACK AND FIELD SWITCH OFFICIALLY FROM YARDS TO METERS

coop wrote:

No one has brought up the marathon. Obviously it is the same distance everywhere, but is it refered to as "26.2 MILES" everywhere? For example, if we were to ask a Kenyan how far the marathon is, would he answer in miles or meters.

Are splits given at mile marks everywhere? I know they are in the US, but does the London have mile splits or Kilometer splits? Or both?

The marathon is officially 42,195 meters, NOT 26.2 miles or even 26 miles 385 yards.

In the late 80's/ early 90's most high school state meets converted from the mile to 1600m, and the 2 mile to 3200m.

coop wrote:

Are splits given at mile marks everywhere? I know they are in the US, but does the London have mile splits or Kilometer splits? Or both?

Forgot to answer your second question - in most of the world, there are km splits rather than miles (London, being in Imperial England, does miles and 5 km). A friend of mine ran her first marathon in Vienna and at first found this a bit disconcerting, but quickly came to like it since it broke the race up into much smaller segments mentally. Tougher job for the measurer and course markers, though.

As to metric vs. mile splits, even in metric races, that too is just from tradition and habit. km splits make more sense in that you get more feedback, more often, and all your splits are even.

Think about it this way. When you run a race, you don't think about what pace you are going to run, you think about your projected finish time and work backwards. I.E. you want to run 18 minutes for 5km, so you figure it out to be about 5:50 mile pace. But it's just as easy (easier, actually) to divide 18 by 5 and come up with 3:36 km pace. We put on a 5km in the fall and only mark kms, before the race we have a metric pace chart. After the race the majority of runners have said they like it a lot better.

The Dyestat idiots are out in full force today.

JimG wrote:

The marathon is officially 42,195 meters, NOT 26.2 miles or even 26 miles 385 yards.

No. The marathon is 26 miles 385 yards. 42,195m is the metric conversion.

oh no1234 wrote:

In the late 80's/ early 90's most high school state meets converted from the mile to 1600m, and the 2 mile to 3200m.

That was in the late 70s

JimFiore wrote:

So, why is repeatedly cutting 1000 meters in half any more logical and less arbitrary than repeatedly doubling 100 meters? Also, my point about the fingers was more in the way of mathematical humor. Being that 10 in octal is 8 in decimal we'd have our cake and eat it too.

I think Ultramiler has made the best argument in the shortest space.

Then why stop the doubling at 800m? The distances 'tuna' proposes make much more sense in the metric system. The distances we now have in the shorter races are just metric equivalents of imperial distances. Why was the 200m chosen? Because it was close to 220yds. Why was 400m chosen? Because it nearly equaled a quarter mile. Why was the 800m chosen? Because it's the metric version of the half mile.

bump

JimFiore wrote:

I think Ultramiler has made the best argument in the shortest space.

If 'Ultramiler' is correct then why don't we have the following distances - 250m: 1/2 lap, 500m: 1 lap, 1000m: 2 laps? 500m tracks were rare. Most tracks were quarter mile tracks that were later converted to 400m tracks, an easy conversion.

NFHS wrote:

The Dyestat idiots are out in full force today.

JimG wrote:

The marathon is officially 42,195 meters, NOT 26.2 miles or even 26 miles 385 yards.

No. The marathon is 26 miles 385 yards. 42,195m is the metric conversion.

Wrong. Read the rulebook. From USATF/RRTC Course Measurement Procedures:

marathon**

 =  42.195 km

 =  26.21876 miles

**The marathon is defined as 42.195 km exactly.

(Their emphasis, not mine - but NO mention of 385 yards)

From the IAAF website (www.iaaf.org):

Marathons were whatever distance the organizers wanted for a while, and even that 1908 distance didn't become "official" until the 1920s. The reason 26.2 became popular, instead of Boston's 24.5, was because of what happened in the 1908 OG race. Dorando Pietri led the race into the stadium but was suffering from some kind of heat injury and got help across the finish line. The Americans protested (because an American was 2nd) and Pietri got DQd. Over the next few years a number of professional rematches between the two were organized and part of the PR for them included reproducing the race distance. Voila, a popular marathon distance.

Original question: It never did. You can hold a sanctioned race over any distance you like. Tom Jordan's putting on a 2-mile in a Super GP meet this year. The IAAF removed all imperial distances (except the mile) from its record books in 1976; I don't know when they were stricken from the American record books. Big US/British meets went metric as follows (most others were always metric).

Commonwealth: 1970

AAA: 1969

AAU/TAC/USATF: went back & forth, with metric as early as 1928; last imperial in 1973

NCAA: often metric in Olympic years, last imperial in 1975

imperial man wrote:

Then why stop the doubling at 800m? The distances 'tuna' proposes make much more sense in the metric system.

As I said before, continual doubling gets a bit out of hand (like running the 6400 meter), so re-aligning to 1500 meters is just as sensible as tuna's drop from 250 meters to 100 meters. From a mathematical perspective, 500 meters is no more or less "metric" or "sensible" than 400 meters. Certainly, I will grant you that 400 meters is close to 1/4 mile and that is an historical convenience.

Ultimately though, the way this thread has evolved points out the (IMO) arrogance and head-in-the-sand approach of the average American. Consider the following:

1. The USA is the only country of note left on the planet that is not officially metric.

2. Olympic/International race distances are metric and include the 1500 meter.

3. The only place on the planet where people run the 1600 and 3200 meter is in USA high schools.

So, American runners whine and moan about the lack of American talent on the international stage, yet we aren't even willing to base our high school events on the International Olympic standards. What's wrong with this picture?

If tracks were standardized to 500 meters then a 500 meter race would make sense. If the IAAF standardized to 1600 meters, then we should do that. Neither is the case, however, and the smart thing to do would be to adhere to the established international norms. If we can't make even that minor of an adjustment then we have no right to b*tch.

Not in all states, many of the events switched in the 80s and early 90's