Timing is everything at the Olympics

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Omega, which has been keeping time for Olympians since 1932, sent 30 stopwatches and one watchmaker to the Los Angeles Games. Four years later, the Zurich-based company dispatched 185 stopwatches for the Berlin Games.

Reuters today reports that Omega has shipped 420 tons of equipment to China for the Beijing Games. The shipment includes 109 miles of cables and optical fiber, transponders to track the marathon runners and touch pads and false-start detectors for swimmers.

The Omega website chronicles timing advances over the decades. The timeline includes the world’s first photo-finish camera (1948 London Games), the first semiautomatic timing device with a digital display (1956 Melbourne Games), and touch pads for swimmers (1968 Mexico City Games).

The website also offers countdown clocks for both the Beijing Games and the 2010 Vancouver Games that relay the exact time registering on official clocks in those cities. And if you want to set an alarm clock so you won’t miss the opening ceremony, Omega’s website offers a clock widget. Click on the ‘countdown downloads’ button.

And, yes, Omega, which donates considerable time, expertise and equipment to the International Olympic Committee to serve as official timekeeper for the Beijing Games, will have the honor of telling the world when it is officially 8 p.m. on Aug. 8, 2008.

--Greg Johnson