HIGHLIGHTS OF OLYMPIC TIMEKEEPING
No timekeeper in the world has a longer or closer relationship with the Olympic Movement than OMEGA. Since 1932 the brand has defined sports timekeeping through its flawless timing of 24 Olympic Games and its development of much of the industry’s most trusted technology.
OMEGA was the first company to be entrusted with the official timekeeping of all disciplines at the Los Angeles Games in 1932 using chronographs and stop-watches developed by its subsidiary Lémania. OMEGA's association with the Olympic Games led to over three quarters of a century of pioneering developments in the field of sports timekeeping.
One of the first innovations by the brand was the world's first independent, portable and water-resistant photoelectric cell (1945). This was later followed by the world's first photofinish camera, the Racend OMEGA Timer (1949), which was a major innovation that solved the problem of grouped arrivals in track events. At the Helsinki 1952 Olympic Games, OMEGA became the first company ever to use electronic timing in sport, with the OMEGA Time Recorder (OTR), which was sanctioned by the International Amateur Athletics Federation on the basis of a rating certificate from the Observatory of Neuchâtel that proved it was accurate to within 0.05 seconds in 24 hours.
At the same Olympic Games in 1952, OMEGA was also awarded the Olympic Cross of Merit for "exceptional services to the world of sport". In 1961, OMEGA invented the Omegascope, which allowed the time of each competitor followed by the TV camera to be superimposed on the TV screen. The 1966 European Athletics Championships in Budapest marked a turning point in sports timekeeping, since they were the first European Championships at which the electronically recorded times were taken as the official times. It was the OTR and the Omegascope that recorded this unique moment.
A year later, OMEGA introduced its "contact pads" for swimming competitions. This simple new technology reacted only to the touch of the swimmers and was not affected by water splashes. Such contact pads have ever since been used at all the world's major swimming events.
In 1990, the brand opened up sports timekeeping to the mass market with the launch of the Scan'O'Vision - a low-cost and popular version of the photofinish camera. OMEGA's most recent development in timing technology was to bring sports timekeeping into the Internet age with live timing of swimming events, which allows anyone with Internet access to view swimming and diving competition results in real time on the OMEGA Timing Internet site, www.omegatiming.com.