The Melbourne cup was changed from 3520 yards (3218.7 meters) to 3200 metres. Why is it not OK to have a 3218.7 metre horse race?

Question

What other changes to track or equipment have taken place in sport in Australia due to conforming with the metric system?

Answer 1

Maybe it was considered too gruelling a length for the horses?

Answer 2

Before we converted to the metric system the Melbourne Cup was run over 2 miles (3520 yards). Everyone referred to it as a 2 mile race not a 3520 yard race - in fact, most of us would not have known the distance in yards.



With conversion the race distance was amended to 3200 metres which equals 2 miles or -would you believe - 3520 yards! So nothing has changed except the term used to measure the distance.

Answer 3

People like nice round numbers, picking a winner is difficult enough without the distances being fractions, almost all race distances are rounded to the nearest 100 metres.

In the Olympics they used to run a 1 mile race but they changed it to 1500 metres because it just sounds better than 1601.8 metres. Same deal with milk, soft drink, canned foods, etc. they round it to a nice easy to remember number, but still the marathon distance remains the same post-metric as it was before

Answer 4

When converting events like that you do not do a direct conversion because such a conversion means you do not take the changeover to metric seriously. The Bathurst 1000 used to be a 500 mile race. 1000km is 620 miles. A closer conversion would have been 800km but 1000 has a certain ring to it. A direct conversion would have been 804.67km which would have been ridiculous.

Answer 5

The distance hasn't changed. It was 2 miles now 3200 metres.

Answer 6

boring