Why 1650 is not 1750?

Try this: Once the United States switched to a system of 50-meter long course and 25-yard short course pools, they had to find a way to keep the two systems as similar as possible, so that when it’s athletes did travel to international competitions, they weren’t at too much of a disadvantage. And this is where the 1650 freestyle came from. The closest emulation of a 1500m swim in a 25-yard pool is the 1650 freestyle (to be precise, 1500m=1640 yards, 1 foot, and 3.12 inches, give or take), so USA-Swimming likely decided to replace the true old-fashioned mile with a newer, more worldly distance, but people were so used to calling this distance the “mile” that the name lived on. So there you have it. It was that crazy Imperial system after all. theswimmerscircle.com/.../ (But probably the governing body was the AAU - was USA Swimming around when the 1650 started showing up in the record books, around 1959 or the early 1960s?)

Try this: Once the United States switched to a system of 50-meter long course and 25-yard short course pools, they had to find a way to keep the two systems as similar as possible, so that when it’s athletes did travel to international competitions, they weren’t at too much of a disadvantage. And this is where the 1650 freestyle came from. The closest emulation of a 1500m swim in a 25-yard pool is the 1650 freestyle (to be precise, 1500m=1640 yards, 1 foot, and 3.12 inches, give or take), so USA-Swimming likely decided to replace the true old-fashioned mile with a newer, more worldly distance, but people were so used to calling this distance the “mile” that the name lived on. So there you have it. It was that crazy Imperial system after all. theswimmerscircle.com/.../ (But probably the governing body was the AAU - was USA Swimming around when the 1650 started showing up in the record books, around 1959 or the early 1960s?)