I had no idea that the Omega watches company was so involved in timekeeping for the Olympic Games! I knew they have always had very precise, exacting watches and official chronometers, but the fact that they are the company that the Olympic Games trusts… amazing. Since 1932, Omega has been in charge of data-handling and other timekeeping services for the Games, and will continue to do so for Vancouver in 2010 and London in 2012.

Omega’s presence at last year’s Beijing Olympics and the Paralympics was the most involved of any official sports timekeeper in the history of the institution: they were responsible for dealing with twenty-eight different sports in thirty-seven separate venues, and there were more than 450 representatives on site, with more than 420 tons of equipment. Theywere in charge of 70 huge scoreboards, 322 event-specific scoreboards, and 105 miles of optical fiber and cables, and hundreds of stop watches. Omega Watches has to adapt specific equipment for specific sports, and develop new technology for data-detection and ever more specific timing, for a world in which a swimming race can go down to a millimeter.

I’m impressed, and am even more inclined to trust Omega with accuracy and dependability, knowing that they serve the world’s finest athletes and the official Olympic Games.