Omega to be the official timekeeper at the Olympic Games Paris 2024

Mention Omega to the average guy on the street and they would likely be familiar with the fact that it’s one of most desirable timepiece brands on the planet and also the preferred timepiece of the world’s most iconic secret agent for over 60 years with a host of their most popular models worn by 007 over the years including the Omega Seamaster Diver 300M, the Seamaster Planet Ocean 600M, the Seamaster Aqua Terra 150M and more.

Omega has been a part of 29 Olympic Games around the globe as the official timekeeper and will be the official timekeeper at the upcoming Olympic Games Paris 2024.

For true horophiles in the know, they’re also the official timekeeper of the Olympic Games since 1932 and they’re continuing the tradition with the upcoming Olympic Games Paris 2024.

Omega at the Olympic Games – At the forefront of timekeeping

Timekeeping at the Olympics is serious business and the precision required is becoming ever more critical as more world records are broken at the finish line. Omega began its tradition of being the official timekeeper at the Olympic Games on 30th July 1932 in Los Angeles. 

With a lone watchmaker from Bienne equipped with 30 stopwatches, accurate to 1/10th of a second, Omega successfully timed 117 events across 14 sports.  From then on, Omega has consistently progressed, developing increasingly accurate timekeeping. 

Omega was the timekeeper at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and will be continuing the tradition at the Olympic Games Paris 2024

With every Olympic Games, Omega has introduced and improved timekeeping with ever more precision from 1/10th of a second in 1932 to 1/1000th of a second and has created a host of new technologies that ensure it remains at the forefront of timekeeping. 

Among these new innovations was the Swim Eight-O-Matic, the world’s first semi-automatic swimming timer in 1956 to better track swimmers who finished almost at the same time, Omegascope technology in 1964 where it showed the ability for ‘real time’ sports reporting by superimposing the live times of athletes on the bottom of a screen for viewers to track in realm time.

One of the unique innovations of Omega for accurate timekeeping was the OmegaScope in 1964 – they will continue this traidition of innovation in timekeeping at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.

Another innovation by Omega was the Video Matrix Board in 1976 Olympic Games where showtimes, points and scores as well as mono video recordings were able to be displayed for easy viewing at the Stade Olympique for spectators and sportsmen to see results.

In 1984 when Carl Lewis won four gold medals, Omega introduced the false start device that measured the pressure each runner exerted against the starting block to detect the slightest false start. In 1992, Omega introduced their new Quantum Timer in London with 100 times greater resolution and a maximum variation of one second out of every ten million seconds and which was five times more accurate, marking a new era of ever more precise timekeeping.

At the prior Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Omega shipped over 400 tonnes of its state-of-the-art technologies, had 530 on-site professionals, utilised over 200km of cables and fibre optic cable, maintained 85 public scoreboards and 350 sport-specific scoreboards onsite to ensure absolutely precise time keeping.

In the upcoming Olympic Games Paris 2024, it will likely do so and a bit more with the introduction of new technologies as new sporting events and new demands for precision timekeeping come to the fore.

The Omega starter pistol adds another level of accuracy to race events that only a master in timekeeping like Omega can pursue with accuracy

In addition to the Olympic Games, Omega is also the official timekeeper for a host of other sporting events including the Volvo Ocean Race, the annual PGA Championship tour, FINA swimming and more. For more on Omega, check out their official site at www.omegawatches.com