Feature: Omega’s Century-long Fight For Olympic Gold

It says much about the status of Omega that the Olympics comes a paltry third in the list of Major Things the brand is associated with. James Bond and the Moon landings can fight it out for the gold and silver medals, of course, but the world’s most iconic sporting event has to settle for the lowest place on the podium.

That said, being the long-term official time-keeper of the Olympics is a potent promotional weapon, and it’s one that Omega has a firm grip on at present. But a number of the brand’s rivals have thrown their hats into the Olympic rings since the event began, meaning Omega has not had a clear-cut path to dominance.

Fending Off Longines

Omega first took on the role of the modern Olympics’ official time-keeper at the Los Angeles games in 1932—by which point the event was 36 years old, having been started in Athens in 1896.

Omega’s Swatch Group stablemate Longines, then privately owned like Omega, is credited with timing those inaugural games. Several brands, including Heuer (later to become TAG Heuer) then shared the duties until Omega grabbed their opportunity in 1932.

A 1956 special edition Olympics watch in yellow gold. Image: Bonhams

Up until this time, the watches used were only accurate to a 1/5th of a second—causing such inconsistencies that times were provided only for those in first place. Omega, however, were able to provide chronometers certified by the Neuchâtel Observatory that were accurate to the nearest 1/10th of a second. They also featured a rattrapante (split-seconds) functionality that was to prove useful for sports timings.

After the Second World War, during which there were no Olympics, hand-held watches were beginning to face competition from other means of time-keeping. By the 1948 event in London, timing races with mechanical stopwatches had been replaced with new photo-finish camera machines such as the Racend Omega Timer—otherwise known as the ‘Magic Eye’.

Other technical firsts included the Omega Swim Eight-O-Matic, a semi-automatic timer introduced at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics which gave more accurate times for swimmers racing in different lanes.

Seiko Muscles In

At the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, Japanese brand Seiko wrestled the role away from Omega and did its country proud, providing a whopping 1,278 timing devices. But it proved to be a one-off, with Omega taking the time-keeping reins again for Mexico City 1968, before trusty industry stalwarts Longines returned after a 76-year hiatus to cover the 1972 Munich event.

An Omega micro-timer stopwatch circa 1965. Image: Bonhams

For the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, a company called Swiss Timing, founded in 1972 and later absorbed into the Swatch Group—owners of Omega—stepped into the role.

Swiss Timing comprised the Swiss Watchmaking Federation, Longines and Omega, with fellow Swiss brand Heuer joining them from 1973 to 1980, the year the group performed the timekeeping for the controversial Moscow Olympics.

Omega watches have timed every Olympics since the 1984 Montreal games, except for Barcelona 1992, which saw the return of Seiko to the role. Initially Swiss Timing—now minus Heuer—were credited for the timekeeping before using the name of its parent company, the Swatch Group.

A London Olympics 1948 commemorative edition chronograph from 2004. Image: Bonhams

From the Beijing 2008 Olympics onwards, the group settled on using the Omega brand name in its own right, and since then it’s been actively promoting its Olympics association, with numerous Olympics-themed models to remind us of this enviable heritage.

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