IOC President honoured with countdown clock in Lausanne
Worldwide Olympic Partner OMEGA yesterday unveiled in Lausanne, Switzerland, a countdown clock to the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games and Rio 2016 Olympic Games. This clock was created in honour of IOC President Jacques Rogge to mark the end of his term of office this year, and was presented as a gift, in collaboration with the City of Lausanne and the Canton of Vaud.
The unveiling ceremony, which was attended by over 100 guests, including President Rogge and OMEGA President Stephen Urquhart, coincided with other activities staged in Lausanne, the Olympic Capital, to mark Olympic Day on 23 June, including the Olympic Day fun run.
The double-sided clock, which is four metres high and weighs around 20 tonnes, incorporates building blocks made of Jura limestone and engraved with the names of all the Olympic sports - seven for the Winter Games on one side and 28 for the Summer Games on the other.
The temporary structure is situated at the port of Ouchy on the edge of Lake Geneva. When the clock was unveiled yesterday afternoon there were a total of 228 days to go until the Opening Ceremony of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games and 1,138 days until the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. After the Sochi 2014 Opening Ceremony on 7 February, the logo will be replaced with that of PyeongChang 2018.
This is not the first countdown clock OMEGA has unveiled for Sochi. In February, the TOP Partner revealed eight countdown clocks in eight ceremonies across Russia to celebrate one year to go to the start of the Games - an impressive feat considering it is the world’s largest country and has nine different time zones. These major cities include Sochi, Moscow, St Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Pyatigorsk, Novosibirsk and Khabarovsk.