The US TeeVee coverage of the Tour is on the Outdoor Life Channel, which is
available on some cable systems.
Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin are the commentators. They're both British
with many years of working on the continent. Most of the mentioned Wombat
is given parenthetically after the km or km/h are given first. Paul will
even mention temperature and only in Celsius if it has a bearing on the
race. Racers weights [we know it's really mass] are usually given in kg.
I'd say the Si to Wombat ratio is about 9:1.
Check it out.
Scott C.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
> Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2001 9:27 AM
> To: U.S. Metric Association
> Subject: [USMA:14338] Re: Tour de France
>
>
> The Washington Post is wombat with the exception of one picture
> caption yesterday where it showed a huge tangle of cyclists on
> the ground with a note that they had crashed a "few kilometers"
> short of the finish; also, in today's paper, there was a table
> with the phrase "Standings from the fourth stage over 215
> kilometers yesterday".
>
> Figures such as "133.5 mile" stage, "1.8 miles to the finish",
> etc. are being bandied about in the text; yesterday, there were
> mileage figures with three figures to the right of the decimal
> point. Obviously some copy editor is really good with a calculator.
>
> Carleton
>
> In a message dated Thu, 12 Jul 2001 10:54:34 AM Eastern
> Daylight Time, "Duncan Bath" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > Now that the Tour de France is in full cycle, how is the [U.S.] media
> > reporting it? In its original SI units or in miles, mph etc.?
> > If the latter, opportunities abound for [politely, objectively]
> urging the
> > use of international units.
> > Duncan
>
