How Omega Olympic timekeeping technology maximises precision, fairness, and storytelling
Zach BlassOmega’s gig as the Official Timekeeper at the Olympic Games requires a ton of work – literally 550 timekeepers and 350 tonnes of equipment. This statistic notably does not include the countless hours of research and development Omega’s Timekeeping Lab spends innovating not only new timekeeping technologies but also means to capture performance and provide analytical storytelling that is precious to the athletes, the judges, and the viewers at home. Omega, who has since served as the Official Timekeeper on 30 occasions, has gone on to develop new means of tracking athlete performance in various ways. During his visit, Andrew explores how Omega is revolutionising timekeeping at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, and how these technologies not only maximise precision but also fairness and storytelling for this major event.
Omega’s Olympic Games journey began in 1932 with manual timekeeping
Omega’s story of becoming the Official Timekeeper for the Olympic Games began in 1932, then the sole trusted watchmaker to provide chronometer chronographs for judges to manually record events. Alain Zobrist, CEO of Swiss Timing LTD (Omega’s Timekeeping Lab) explains: “Omega was chosen because at the time, Omega was the only company that could provide 30 certified chronographs accurate to the tenth of a second to measure the athlete’s performance.” While the best tool for the job then, the act of timekeepers reacting to finishes and depressing the pusher of the watch to stop time of course is not immune to human error. Eventually, electronic means of recording performances would be developed to further increase the precision of Olympic timekeeping. These developments have led to measurements, which began with an accuracy up to 1/10th of a second, that can be accurate up to a millionth of a second.
Eliminating human error and reaction time with the precision of electronics
While electronic technologies had been developed by the early ’60s, it would be some time before they were used as the primary means of recording time. Zobrist explains: “In 1932, everything was done through manual timekeeping, and although electronic timekeeping started to pop up in the early ’60s, manual timekeeping remained the main system with electronic as a backup.” A significant milestone in Omega’s tenure as Official Timekeeper was the introduction of touchpads in swimming. This new tech allowed athletes to stop their own time for the first time. As you can imagine, this is a far more precise means of gauging the finish time than the human eye determining when the line was crossed, and then depressing a stopwatch pusher. In fact, it was a photo finish controversy during a swimming event in 1960 that led to the development of the electronic touchpad.
Zobrist explains: “There was an incident in 1960 in Rome. It was the 100-metre final swimming freestyle, and two athletes finished with the same average time. So, the head judge decided to award one of them with the Olympic gold medal, and the other with the Olympic record. Following this controversial event, the International Swimming Federation contacted Omega and asked whether they could develop a technology that would replace human reaction times to prevent such controversies that could eventually happen. Seven years later, Omega introduced the famous touchpads used for the first time at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico.”
The development of new camera technologies also played a pivotal role in the more accurate judgment of contests. Photo finish cameras began to be developed in the ’50s, but in these early days, the cameras used film. Timekeepers would be stationed near dark rooms where the film could be developed. The problem, however, was it would take hours for these images to be developed. This meant there was yet to be a practical means by which captured imagery could immediately inform the judgment of contests – the naked eye and human reaction and perception were still the primary tools. What happens if a contest is so close it ends in a photo finish, but you do not have the photos to best determine who actually finished first? The current and most precise solution is Omega’s new Scan ‘O’ Vision Ultimate, a camera technology debuting at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (alongside some other Omega Olympic novelties) that will enable the capture of up to 40,000 digital images per second on the finish lines of races – informing judges who can then make instantaneous judgments.
Optimising fairness with the Electronic Starting Pistol in 2010
Another technology Andrew was able to get hands-on, or rather feet-on, experience with was the starting block for track and field runners and the Electronic Starting Pistol that debuted in 2010. Understandably, the Electronic Starting Pistol is far more practical to travel with, but where its development really provided a crucial improvement was how it created a fairer starting signal for the athletes.
Zobrist tells Andrew: “There are two reasons why the old powder guns have been replaced with the Electronic Starting Pistol. Firstly, imagine a 400-metre start where athletes start in a turn. Back in the day, the athletes further away from the gun heard the gunshot a little bit later than the athletes closer to the gun – which offered a subtle advantage. With the Electronic Starting Pistol, and the little loudspeakers on the back of the starting block, the athletes equally receive the audible starting cue. The other reason why it was important to develop an electronic starting gun, as you can imagine while traveling through customs with a modified powder gun became a little bit more difficult in in recent years.”
While the speaker within the starting block affords a fairer chance for everyone to have the best starting cue, built-in sensors will also best capture if any athlete starts too early through precise pressure measurements.
Increasing “storytelling” through motion-tracking systems
So we have explored how Omega’s Timekeeping Lab has worked to build systems that offer the utmost precision and fairness for competitors. The third element Omega has greatly contributed to during its tenure is the element of storytelling through its developed motion-tracking systems. This can be looked at in two ways. From the perspective of the coaches and competitors, Omega’s motion-tracking systems and the data they capture tell the story of an athlete’s performance in a meaningful and insightful way. For example, for the first time ever during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Omega will use sensors and cameras to measure the reaction time of returns of serve in tennis.
Why? Zobrist explains: “Do you remember the great times of Boris Becker, known for having one of the best serves, and Andre Agassi, who was one of the best at returning serve? When they were playing against each other, Andre Agassi spotted Boris’ tell, where his tongue would point to where the ball was going to be served. Agassi only revealed that at the end of their careers, and everyone was wondering why Boris’ serve was particularly less effective against him. So, what we’re doing here for the first time is capture the reaction time of the opponent returning serve and we will use that data to correlate the quality of the return with the reaction time of the player.”
This is just one new example of how these systems can tell data-driven stories, with thousands of data points, to inform athletes on how they can, to put it simply, up their game. Previous examples include the distance between divers’ heads and the boards they dive off of. Such data would seem meaningless to most, but could greatly aid divers and their teams in maximising scores.
Storytelling is not just applicable to the competitors, it is also meant to elevate the experience for spectators. An early example of Omega’s consideration for the audience was the development of its OmegaScope – the first-ever graphics in an Olympic broadcast. With OmegaScope, the broadcast of a race would include a graphic of the timing clock so viewers could see in real-time how many seconds or minutes had elapsed. Nowadays, sports fans are afforded a ton of graphics and statistics, but Omega’s latest systems will provide deep insights to broadcasters that can then also be relayed to viewers worldwide – not just the athletes. This brings audiences even closer to the action and the science behind victorious or losing performances.