system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why are running tracks anticlockwise instead of clockwise?

I'd like to know if there are some explanations or just coincidence.
gpt
There's no real reason, other than the fact that we had to pick one.

Initially it would just depends on the track and the event, each club/race would be run one way, and events at the same track tended to use the same direction. After a while, this kind of thing tends to spread to make life easier... until most of a country is running the same way.

The first 2 (modern) Olympic Games (Athens 1896, Paris 1900, America 1904) all used Clockwise running, and clockwise tracks were still being used as late as the 1940s.

In 1904, it was realised that more countries present used anti-clockwise tracks at home, so from then onward the olympics switched to anti-clockwise. Once the Olympics switched and started to become more popular, pretty much everyone else followed slowly suit... because if you want to compete at the Olympics, it makes sense to practice by running in the same direction

----

So the simple answer

**There's no specific reason, it's just that when we wanted to decide on a single direction, we realized more people/countries/clubs/tracks used anti-clockwise running, and we went with the majority**