The 1500m IS SO STUPID

I mean you aren't totally wrong. The 1500 doesn't make sense. We have 400m tracks standard. The 100, 200 and 400 make some sense, quarter lap, half lap, one lap. The 800 makes sense. The 3k 5k and 10k are all round kilometers, even if one of them uses a half lap to do so. The 1500m is neither full kilometer based, nor track distance based....I know it is historical, but it appears to be an attempt to be similar to the mile, even back in the 1800s, before tracks were standardized. I don't know why the settled on 1500m for that. Swimming does it too. They use the 1500m in both lap swim and triathlon.

But changing it would be stupid since they have been running the 1500 since the mid 1800s in Europe and the late 1800s in the rest of the word, except the commonwealth, which didn't change over until the 1960s.

I hated the 1600 because it was 9 meters shorter than the race I wanted to run in high school. I would have much rather run the 1500.

Yes, running 1500 miles is less tiring.

Bring back the mile!

I love it. The 100 meter straight is great.

British Thoroughbred horse racing has significant influence over track events. Two-hundred meters, 400m, 800m are similar in distance to 1 furlong, 2 furlongs and 4 furlongs. Five mile XC used to be an Olympic event. Wasn't there a 3 mile team XC event about 99 years ago? We need to rid ourselves of Imperial events and events similar to Thoroughbred horsing racing. Fifteen-hundred meters has been an Olympic event at every Olympics since 1896. Fifteen hundred meters stays. You need to adjust.

It makes sense when you think in kilometres.

Also, starting on a straight makes far more sense (for such a high speed event - where participants aren't in lanes), than starting on a bend.

I agree!

Unfortunately, there are things in life that are what they are because they are, or perhaps they made sense at some point and it is just easier to maintain the status quo or perhaps there are more important things to worry about or perhaps somebody, somewhere in some way benefits form doing it a certain way or perhaps or sport's decision makers lack the will to do what is right and sensible.

At the highest level (pros, Olympics, etc) it makes sense to have a race that's run at such a fast pace start on a straightaway. So that's one decent reason to prefer 1500 over 1600. Another is that 1.5km makes somewhat more sense that 1.6km, and nearly the entire world, including the U.S. in large part when it comes to track and field, thinks in terms of metric. I suppose you could argue for the 2k being the next logical distance, but 1500m gets as close as possible to double the previous distance (800m) while still satisfying the two criteria mentioned above.

100 - .25
100h/110h - .25/some weird decimal
200 - .50
1500 - 3.75
steeple - 7.5
5000 - 12.5

400 - 1.0
800 - 2.0
10000 - 25.0

maybe we should narrow it down to 3 individual running events?

Just sayin', very very few tracks have a 100m straight section. The "Length of each straight section" on a track following the World Athletics standard track design is 84.39m.

Agreed. But from that reasoning, then the 800 makes less sense. And the 400 really makes no sense.

And imho as I have said before, the 200 is the dumbest event on the track. Full sprint start, from blocks, on the curve? Ridiculous. Esp with the newer tracks, the curve is approx 115m and the straight is approx 85m. (The athletes are awesome. I'm saying, the EVENT is dumb)

If there needs to be both a 100m dash event AND a 200m dash event, then I say bring back the long straightaway 200. Old school.

[ btw - For the ancient Greeks, the prestige event was the stadion, a roughly 200y straightaway sprint. If you won the Olympic stadion, the next 4 years were named after you! ]

Anyway - point being, if you really start thinking about event distances -- a lot of it may not make sense.

Forgot to say - imo starting in lanes helps with collisions, but an on-the-curve start is pretty weird for any high speed running.

Lol yeah keep it simple

100m (metric sprint)
1000m (metric MD)
10000m (metric distance)

There you go :D

Of course, then the 1K doesn't work if you are concerned with even lap counts. 😄

No, the mile is MUCH better.

You are incorrect. Lane 1 does not have a 100 meter straight but they don't use lanes. They start 300 meters back from the finish line and use a straight line drawn 100 meters back from the start of the 200 in lane 1. Watch and learn.

runnerspace.com

USATF.TV - Videos - Nike Men's 1500m Prelim Section 3 - Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships 2023

Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships 2023

Open link

Writing your instead of you're

I think 500m tracks used to be a lot more common around the turn of the 20th century.