Feature: When Omega Lost The Olympics

Tokyo’s residents were elated when it was announced back in 2013 that they were to host the 2020 Summer Olympics. In contrast, the Japanese owners of Seiko must have been devastated when they realised that, unlike the last time the Olympics came to Tokyo in 1964, they weren’t going to be the official timekeepers.

While it probably wasn’t enough to make them commit harakiri in shame, it can’t sit comfortably with Seiko that a Swiss brand, Omega, is the Tokyo Olympics’ official timekeeper.

Omega first assumed this role at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1932—and it’s done so many times since—but it certainly hasn’t had a monopoly on the event like some people think.

As we shall see, the battle to be the official custodian of Summer Olympics timekeeping over the decades has been a fascinating one contested by a number of brands.

Longines Got There First

From the birth of the modern Olympics in Athens in 1896 until the Amsterdam games in 1928, several manufacturers provided stopwatches to time Olympic track events. Unsurprisingly for a brand that had already been around for 64 years, Longines is credited with timing events at the inaugural Athens games.

The following four events held in Paris, St Louis, London and Stockholm were timed by multiple brands, until Heuer (it didn’t become TAG Heuer until 1985) took over for Antwerp, Paris and Amsterdam—held in 1920, 1924 and 1928, respectively.

Longines was official timekeeper for the first modern Olympics and has since returned to the role

The luxury watches used until this time, however, were only accurate to a 1/5th of a second—causing such inconsistencies that times were provided only for the winners. An event as big and prestigious as the Olympics was crying out for greater precision. And it was to arrive in the form of one of the world’s best known and longest-running watch brands.

Los Angeles 1932

At the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, Omega took over all timekeeping duties, raising the bar with chronometers that were certified by the Neuchâtel Observatory and accurate to the nearest 1/10th of a second while also featuring a rattrapante (split-seconds) functionality.

It was Omega’s chance to not only enhance its reputation as one of the most accurate watchmakers around but carry out some welcome brand endorsement outside its native Europe. And it was a role it strived to protect for decades.

Omega assumed timekeeping duties at the Los Angeles 1932 Olympics

Omega poured huge resources into developing its sports-timing technology. By the 1948 London Olympics, timing with mechanical stopwatches had been replaced with pioneering photo-finish camera machines such as the Racend Omega Timer—otherwise known as the ‘Magic Eye’—which ushered in a new era of accuracy.

Seiko Pulls Off A Coup

Tokyo had been due to host the 1940 Summer Olympics—an opportunity, perhaps, for Seiko to prove its mettle as a watchmaker. It was already producing wristwatches at this time, as well as pocket watches for the Japanese rail network. Perfectly poised to step in and take over from Omega, Seiko was dealt a devastating blow when the start of World War II in 1939 saw the event cancelled.

The city had to wait until 1964 to make its debut as an Olympics host, during which time it had made huge technological progress. Meanwhile, in the intervening years, Omega carried on as official timekeeper, rolling out several more of its own time-keeping devices that kept on raising the bar.

Among its many accomplishments was the Omega Swim Eight-O-Matic, the world’s first semi-automatic swimming timer. Introduced at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, it gave more accurate times for swimmers racing in different lanes.

Seiko did its country proud in 1964, however, providing a whopping 1,278 devices for the games in Tokyo. Yet even this incredible achievement failed to break the stranglehold that the Swiss had over the Olympics.

The Swiss Return

The 1968 Mexico City Olympics saw Omega take the time-keeping reins again before trusty industry stalwarts Longines returned after a 76-year hiatus to cover the 1972 Munich event.

And this is where things get slightly complicated.

A 1960s Omega stopwatch. Image courtesy of 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 has 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.

Stepping Into The Limelight

Finally, starting with the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the group settled on using the Omega brand name in its own right, and since then it’s been vigorously promoting its Olympics heritage.

An Omega Seamaster Olympic edition from 2004, auctioned by Bonhams in 2014

A shame, then, that this delayed Olympics will be largely spectator-free with nowhere near the TV viewing figures it could expect in normal circumstances.

You can understand if Seiko, from an industry perspective at least, might be experiencing a little bit of schadenfreude at the way things have turned out for its long-time Swiss rival.

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