News The London Olympics were particularly significant for Omega this year since they marked the brand’s 25th intervention as official timekeeper. Indeed Omega has immortalised the results of the world’s greatest athletes since 1932.
In its capacity as official timekeeper, Omega gave the London Olympics the benefit of more than a hundred years of experience in the timing of international sporting events. The brand’s timekeeping and data-processing teams relied on experience accrued from the last 24 editions of the Games and on the competency that has given Omega an unrivalled reputation in sports timekeeping precision.
It all began in 1932, when Omega became the official timekeeper of the Los Angeles Olympic Games, providing for all disciplines thirty high-precision chronographs, all certified as chronometers by Neuchâtel Observatory. The brand won the backing of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) thanks to the certificate of accuracy that endorsed its chronographs. Official results were recorded to within a fifth and one tenth of a second. Four years later, not thirty, but 185 chronographs were taken to the Berlin Olympic Games. In 1948, photoelectric cells made their first appearance at the winter Games in Saint-Moritz and brought about a major change: human intervention was no longer required to start the timer, since the system triggered itself automatically with the opening of the starting gate. The same year in London, the photo-finish camera, nicknamed the Magic Eye, was introduced to the world of precision timekeeping. It was at this edition of the Olympic Games that machines really started to supplant people in matters of accuracy. Four years later, at the Helsinki games, the Omega Time Recorder made its appearance: a mobile device independent of the electrical network which allowed results to be printed and recorded to within one hundredth of a second. In another major innovation, in 1960 in Rome, final decisions were made by visual judgment. In 1964 in Innsbruck, the Omegascope, a device that displays real time during sports broadcasts by embedding luminous figures at the bottom of the TV screen, allowed viewers to be informed quickly and precisely of the results of events. In 1980, the Game-O-Matic, designed to calculate and display the ranking of athletes as they crossed the line, was used for the first time at the Lake Placid winter games. Four years later, Los Angeles saw the arrival of false start detectors that revolutionised the world of timekeeping. Another major innovation was introduced in 1996 in Atlanta: the first global Olympic timekeeping system, which for every sport and every discipline met the three major requirements of timekeeping, namely the measurement of times, data processing and the transmission of results. In 2010, the starter’s gun, with its echoes of the revolvers made famous in westerns, was replaced by a futuristic and aerodynamic apparatus consisting of a flash gun combined with an acoustic generator. When the starter presses the trigger, three things happen simultaneously: the emission of a sound, the projection of a ray of light and the start of the timekeeping device. With every new Olympic Games, Omega has introduced significant innovations, thereby demonstrating the extent of the brand’s commitment to perfecting high-level timekeeping and to giving each athlete the assurance that the times registered during sporting competitions are authentic.
2012 also saw its share of new inventions: the Quantum Timer, boasting an optimised resolution of 1 µs (one millionth of a second), marked the arrival of a new generation of timekeeping instruments, offering a resolution 100 times greater than that of early devices. It also provides an accuracy of 0.1 part per million (ppm). This means an observable maximum variation of just one second every ten million seconds, or one hundredth of a second every thousand seconds. The previous device offered a precision of 0.5 ppm, i.e. five times less accurate. One of the most remarkable innovations of the Quantum Timer is the back-up system incorporated in the central unit. With 16 independent tracks, 128 inputs and 32 outputs, it is difficult to see how any sport could live without it. New starting blocks were also introduced this year. The response times of athletes are determined solely by measurement of the force exerted on the sole of the block and not by movement. The new models can detect the response times of each runner without requiring any changes whatsoever to the settings. Other innovations also featured at the London Olympics, such as the Swimming Show signalling system which indicates the three winners of the race to spectators by illuminating the starting blocks. Again in swimming, the Open Water Gate system informs spectators of intermediate times during long events such as the 1,500 or 800 metres freestyle.
Around 450 specialists, supported by many volunteers recruited and trained on site, managed this panoply of high-tech devices with scrupulous care. And no fewer than 400 tonnes of equipment were installed on London’s sports sites to serve approximately 10,500 athletes from 200 different countries.
Alongside its huge investment in timekeeping, Omega welcomed to a sumptuous town house in the heart of Soho its ambassadors and friends (Qiu Bo, Michael Phelps, Chad le Clos, Jenn Suhr, etc) in search of a moment’s peace and relaxation. This property was also the venue for special evening events, such as the Brazilian Night, whose ambience heralded that of the future Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Other special guests honoured the house with their presence, such as Nicole Kidmann (actress), Abhishek Bachchan (Bollywood actor) and Greg Norman (golfer), all of whom are ambassadors of the brand.
As if this involvement wasn’t enough, Omega, as at every Olympic Games, immortalised the event with a special edition of its timepieces. The London games were marked by the launch of the Omega Seamaster 1948 Co-Axial «London 2012», a revamped version of the first Seamaster automatic. This model, regarded as a timeless classic, is as elegant today as it was more than sixty years ago. While the exterior appearance of the watch is reminiscent of its illustrious predecessor, the internal mechanism is totally different. The Seamaster 1948 is powered by the exclusive 2202 Omega calibre, an officially certified chronometer movement featuring a Co-Axial escapement on three levels and an index-free balance-spring. A «London 2012» version of the Aqua-Terra Co-Axial (hours, minutes, seconds or with chronograph) rounds off the range of limited editions dedicated to the Olympic Games.
And to top it all, Omega designed especially for the Games a TV commercial which has been widely broadcast on all channels and on the web since last June, which spotlights the preparatory rituals of highly-focused athletes during the decisive moments preceding the event. This commercial, which the original soundtrack is the legendary Rolling Stones song «Start me up», can still be viewed on YouTube.
September 11, 2012
