The Oddity That Was Hungary

[dj]

Hungary has a unique position in the world of track. It's the only country in the world that was not under British rule at one time and yet conducted its early national championships at English distances, not metric.

The Hungarian national championships began in 1896, but it wasn't until 1915 that Hungary switched to the metric system for track races. (I don't know how field events were measured from 1896-1914.)

So here's the big question for which I've yet to find a definitive answer: Why? Why was non-Brit Hungary using yards and miles?

I figured this might be due to hereditary ties to the Court of St. James dating back to Queen Victoria. But the Austro-Hungarian Empire appears to have had no such ties. On the other hand, Victoria did have or produce 19th century hereditary ties to Denmark, Greece, and several principalities of Germany. But none of those countries ever ran English distances at their national championships.

So why Hungary???

[Marlow]

Hungary has a unique position in the world of track. It's the only country in the world that was not at one time under British rule.

Say what?! I'm feeling there's a trick here somewhere, but how can you say that? China? Brazil? Dozens of others?

[dj]

Hungary has a unique position in the world of track. It's the only country in the world that was not at one time under British rule.

Say what?! I'm feeling there's a trick here somewhere, but how can you say that? China? Brazil? Dozens of others?

Damn. Cleaned up one part of a sentence and destroyed the rest. Original now fixed!

[lonewolf]

"only country in the world that was not at one time under British rule ." ???????Something missing from that sentence.

[dj]

"only country in the world that was not at one time under British rule ." ???????Something missing from that sentence.

Fixed, read the first item now.

[kuha]

Somewhere on my shelf, I know I have a rare book on the history of Hungarian athletics, purchased in Budapest, in Hungarian. If I can actually put my hands on it and decipher anything, I will give a full report.

[lonewolf]

Sorry. Scanning too fast. Makes sense now...and is a genuine wonderment.

[rhymans]

I think the answer simply dwells within the realms of sport. The Hungarian sports authorities saw that the sport had developed more in Britain at that time than anyweher else (at least in Europe) and considered the championship distances used for the AAA championships the most attractive to use. They didn't race at distances beyond 1 mile in Hungarian championship until 1915 (the curious exception being the 15,000m which commenced in 1912). Here I'm just guessing, but it may be that they used some English blueprints for track measurement.