Why do we run the 1500 instead of the 1600?

You can't say americans are stupid for running the 1600 and 3200. All college track meets ive been too they run the 1500 and 3k and ive seen more and more high school students list their pr's in the 1500 and 3k. Especially on the east coast high 1500 and 3k's look to be catching on, but i have had the same question i think its stupid run 1/2 laps and 3/4 laps take adavantage of the track and run the whole lap.

Are you guys even reading the previous posts? The 1500m is just a political compromise for the international scene to have something close to the mile!!

That's it! It's the only answer it's the METRIC MILE the subjective equivelant of the MILE.

The mile is a unit of measure in the standard system. Dating back to Queen Elizabeth I. It became an amazingly popular distance and thus spawned the 1500 when an equivelant was need (The closest rounded number).

This isn't hard if you research it people...

There are no 500m tracks, nothing to do with straight aways. ALL THAT MATTERS IS THE RELATION OF DISTANCE TO THE MILE.

It's because Jimmy Carter wanted us on the metric system.

The 1500m and 2-liter soda bottles were the only thing that changed.

Always Right wrote:

the IAAF just wanted to round everything off to metric measurements and .

just blame the French and the Weapons of Mass Distraction

not in the world champ's and Olympics

It seems as if the sprints and the distances evolved under different ideals.

The 500m track idea works for the 1500, 3000, 5000, and 10000.

A quarter mile track works well for the 100y, 220, 440 and 880. And easily converts to a 400m track for the 100, 200, 400 and 800 which are still metricly pleasing as you double the distance.

But after the 800, the distances just do not sound as well.

1600, 3200, 4800 and who wants to see the 9600.

So they picked the milish distance of 1500m and went with 3000, 5000 and 10000.

What track to use?

If they use a 500m track then the 200 and 400 would start in really funny places.

You could still have sensible starting places for the 1500 and 5000 on a 400m track. Plus you use less land.

There you go

I think you guys are trying to ascribe reason and definability to a something that has none. I would imagine it just kind of happened by some sort of meandering consensus where both the 1600 and the 1500 hundred co-exsisted for sometime and the 1600 lost for no paticular reason at all other than more event coordinators ran the 1500.

Further I would imagine if you were to plot the this trend towards the 1500 it would fit well to the natural log.

Take that! wrote:

I think you guys are trying to ascribe reason and definability to a something that has none. I would imagine it just kind of happened by some sort of meandering consensus where both the 1600 and the 1500 hundred co-exsisted for sometime and the 1600 lost for no paticular reason at all other than more event coordinators ran the 1500.

Further I would imagine if you were to plot the this trend towards the 1500 it would fit well to the natural log.

The 1600 has never co-existed, and exists only in the same public school system that clearly didn't educate you.

toro....I think you have it.....I like your answer and it makes sense!...finally I have a better understanding

Thanks

and that makes sense to you? looks like an argument for running the 1600

You are missing the point. 1500 is half of 3000, and 3000 is a nice round number, just like 5000 and 10,000.

1600 is getting funky, because when you double it, it goes to 3200.

BTW, the first Olympics in 1896 ran the 1500, so it was obviously well decided by then. I just wonder when.

And I am wondering if anyone will show us just where they had built a 500 meter track.

1) Pre-WWI, there was absolutely no standardization in tracks and they came in an od assortment of lengths ranging from 200 yards to 600 meters. There really wasn't a heck of a lot of standardization in rules until the IAAF was formed in 1912. Sometimes there were ropes separating lanes, sometimes not. Sometimes there weren't even lanes -- imagine what it was like to get stuck on the rail in the 220y! Championship meets had at times been held on rectangular tracks or even just around stakes set in the outfield of a baseball field. For the long jump, competitors picked where they wanted the competition held and they'd turn over the turf & topsoil to make a pit. Even as late as 1962, Snell ran a WR on a grass track, which was just a 385-yard loop around stakes set in a rugby pitch.

2) The imperial distances were used because the Brits invented the modern sport of track & field in the early 1800s, and they stuck for events where it made some kind of sense because they happened to rule most of the world at that time. The Olympics went with metrics because they were invented by a Frenchman and started off fairly Euro-centric.

3) There were no standard distances beyond 1 mile until the 1930s. The US and Canadian championships had 2-mile and 5-mile races; the English championships had 4-mile and 10-mile races; Australia had 3 miles; most of Europe had 5k and 10k races. It wasn't until 1932 that pretty much everybody agreed on 3M/5k and 6M/10k.

4) Events developed in the UK or USA are imperial. Examples: men's shot & disc are 16 lbs; the men's high hurdles are 15y from the start to the first hurdle and 10y in between. Events developed in Europe are metric. Examples: the jav is 800g, the men's disc is 2 kg, and all the women's throwing implements are metric as are the distances between hurdles in both the 400H and the women's 100H.

5) And the marathon is such a screwy distance not just because they made it that distance for the 1908 Olympics, but because right after it the principal players in that race staged a series of highly publicized (and heavily wagered) professional matches which recreated the exact distance. Some of them were at the Polo Grounds in New York, and if you think a marathon on an outdoor track is bad enough, others were INDOORS at Madison Square Garden.

Jelly Beanz wrote:

Ok wise guys - I have been running for 30 plus years and have never had a sensible answer to this question. Traditionally tracks were not 500m, they were 440 yards, 1/4 miles. Yes, I know there were some tracks of different lengths, but the standard track was 440 yards.

No -- they were 500 meters.

that makes sense to you? looks like a good argument for running 1600 instead - like many high schools do

As long as everyone in the race agrees on the set distance.....what does it matter?????

Always Right wrote:

Are you guys even reading the previous posts? The 1500m is just a political compromise for the international scene to have something close to the mile!!

That's it! It's the only answer it's the METRIC MILE the subjective equivelant of the MILE.

The mile is a unit of measure in the standard system. Dating back to Queen Elizabeth I. It became an amazingly popular distance and thus spawned the 1500 when an equivelant was need (The closest rounded number).

This isn't hard if you research it people...

There are no 500m tracks, nothing to do with straight aways. ALL THAT MATTERS IS THE RELATION OF DISTANCE TO THE MILE.

Is 1600 not the nearest round number? Isn't 1600 more the "equivalent"? 1500 still makes no sense, and I'm still waiting for the answer.

1500m is a standard of measurement in the SI system.

The Metric Mile is a standard just as much as a meter, a furlong, or inch.

If you want to know why they choose 1500m over 1600m, you'll have to ask the creators of the metric system and they are a bunch of guys who lived in 18th century France. But I am guessing since the entire system was created to have nice round even numbers, they went to 1500 instead of 1600, b/c 5 is obviously easier than 6.

We run the 1500m b/c track is a metric sport, and 1500m is literally the Unit of measure called "the Metric Mile". Get it yet?

It could be that at one time "the mile" was THE distance to run. It was 4 laps of a 440y track. Everything else was relative to that. Then when the metric system came to dominate events we got the 1500 and 3000 because 1.5k and 3k are rounder numbers than 1.6k and 3.2k. So we have the 1500, 3000, 5k, and 10k because they are metrically round. We have the 100, 200, 400, 800 because they relate better to the mile which is 1609m, a bit more than 4 laps. The US never advanced to the metric system because we've always been a stubborn nation and we either want to do things differently or remain in isolation. We play soccer while the rest of the world plays football. We run the 1600 and 3200 while the rest of the world runs the 1500 and 3000. We jump and throw in feet instead of meters.

Alan

This is exactly what happened with the steeplechase. The event first made it to the 1900 Paris Olympics as a distance of 2 miles, which is what the British had been running. By 1920 in Antwerp, it was rounded to the "metric 2 mile" distance of 3000m.

http://www.simonvroemen.nl/steeple.php