User:Jnestorius/Metrication in sport

<Metrication

• IFAB trawl Archives of the IFAB
• International Rugby Football Board 1974 for 1975 25yd --> 22m (though 23m closer)
• Gaelic Athletic Association
  • proposed 1917 (presumably as anti-British gesture)
  • accepted 1975 (starting 1976?) 50y --> 45m and 70y --> 65m
    • "profile reporters and commentators still simply refuse to use the official metric terms adopted by the Association in 1975"
• IAAF
  • 1976 for 1977 abolished all non-metric distances except mile (marathon non-round in both)
  • for 1963 field events official metric with imperial to nearest quarter-inch and rounded up
  • hurdle heights and field event length and weights mix of metric and non (presume all now defined in metric; when did rounding-down of imperial measurements take effect?)
  • USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships: men's used metric in Olympic years from 1928, and all years 1932–1952; once-off 1959, and all years from 1974. Women's from 1975.
  • The Athletics Congress abolished metric except mile in 1978.
• Boxing at the Olympics#Events: pre-WW2 used pounds even in metric countries. Who organised? Check official reports. Weight class (boxing)#Amateur boxing: "When the AIBA was founded in 1946 to govern amateur boxing, it metricated the weight class limits by rounding the pounds values to the nearest kilogram."
• Commonwealth Games
  • Athletics went metric in 1970.
  • Swimming went metric in 1970 too.
  • Track cycling events is weird:
    • "10 mile scratch race" all the way to 1994, though might latterly have been 16 km.
      • UCI distance is 15 km, World Championships scratch date from 2002
    • "4000 m individual pursuit" since 1950, though early might have been 2.5 mile.
• Swimming: "FINA ruled in 1956 that starting 1 Jan 1957 they would only recognize metric marks made in 50 metre pool." — does that mean wouldn't recognise yard marks, or wouldn't recognise metric marks set in non-50 metre pools?