Greg Jayne, Opinion page editor Photo

For my money, the signature moment of the Rio Olympics has been Usain Bolt winning the 109-yard, 13-inch dash. Or maybe Bolt in the 218-yard, 2-foot, 2-inch race. Or perhaps Mo Farah repeating as champion in the 6-mile, 376-yard contest.

None of these victories will be mentioned as such in the record books. That is because the rest of the world uses the metric system for measuring distance, while the United States clings to the antiquated notion of yards and feet and inches. So, Bolt’s events are more commonly referred to as the 100 meters and the 200 meters, and Farah is master of the 10,000-meter race (or 10 kilometers, if you prefer).

All of this seems rather silly. Or at least the U.S. position seems rather silly — unless being aligned with Liberia and Myanmar as the only nations that don’t use the metric system is somehow essential to national security.

While most countries break down the world into the perfectly logical system of 10 centimeters to a decimeter and 10 decimeters to a meter, Americans prefer the mental gymnastics of having 12 inches to a foot, and three feet to a yard, and 1,760 yards to a mile. And what is a mile, anyway, other than 63,360 inches?

Years ago, school kids throughout the country were taught the metric system in preparation for its widespread use in the United States. This made sense, considering that on Dec. 23, 1975, President Gerald Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act, which had been passed by Congress.