The countdown is almost over, the athletes are ready, and the timers are set to begin.
On July 26th, the Olympic Games Paris 2024 will ignite a summer of sporting action in the heart of the French capital.
For the 31st time since 1932, OMEGA will fulfil the role of Official Timekeeper, recording dreams in all 329 Olympic events across 32 sports. Overall, the Swiss brand brings more than 90 years of experience to its timekeeping role and will arrive in Paris with the most advanced technology it has ever delivered.
This will be followed by the Paralympic Games, beginning on August 28th, at which OMEGA’s experience and expertise will be required again. The brand has proudly timed this competition since 1992 using the same reliable equipment as the Olympic Games, along with many pieces of adapted technology.
At every edition of the Olympic Games, the motto of “faster, higher, stronger – together” certainly rings true. World Records are constantly being broken and the margins of victory are becoming slimmer by the split-second. For that reason, OMEGA is forever evolving and updating the equipment that athletes, judges, and spectators rely on.
Paris 2024 will highlight OMEGA’s next leap forward in the field of modern timekeeping. Raising the standards of precision and performance, the brand will not only measure the results that separate gold, silver, and bronze, but will also unleash a wave of in-depth data that shows exactly how each event is won or lost.
Take your place on the start line – and prepare to witness the emotions, triumphs, and stories of this special moment in time.
A Legacy of Dreams
There is no other watch company with the Olympic Games experience and timekeeping expertise of OMEGA. The brand’s legacy began in 1932, when for the first time in history, a single watch company was selected as the Official Timekeeper for every event. It was a defining moment in the history of sports measurement that set the course for an incredible future. OMEGA sent one watchmaker all the way from Bienne to Los Angeles, armed with 30 high-precision stopwatches that were accurate to the nearest 1/10th of a second.
This was followed in 1936 with the Olympic Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where OMEGA was again selected as Official Timekeeper, this time accepting the challenge of snowy events such as speed skating and alpine skiing.
From these first forays into timekeeping, it was clear that OMEGA excelled in precision, with reliable equipment and dedicated professionals who could fulfil the huge task required. It has now been 92 years since Los Angeles 1932. The reliability and trust of the IOC has remained constant throughout that time, yet the technology that OMEGA brings to the Olympic Games has been in continuous evolution.
While 1948 saw the arrival of the electronic era, with OMEGA’s first photofinish camera and photoelectric cells, there was more to come in 1956 and 1968, when the sport of swimming was revolutionized with semi-automated timers and the now-iconic touchpads. In athletics, devices such as starting blocks and false start detection have seen ongoing development and improvement since 1984.
Today, the modern era only proves how far OMEGA has come. Gone are the days of the stopwatch, now replaced by quartz-driven Quantum Timers, first introduced in 2012, that can split time by a millionth of a second. Since 2018, OMEGA has also been the leader in motion sensor and positioning systems, where every athlete’s performance can be measured from start to finish – revealing exactly how each event is won or lost.
Certainly, it has been a journey of ground-breaking technology alongside historic sporting moments. More than a duty, the Olympic Games for OMEGA has become a passion that perfectly represents the company’s quest for precision, quality, and achievement.
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