The OMEGA clock has started at the Youth Olympic Games
As the world’s best young athletes gather to compete at the Youth Olympic Games Buenos Aires 2018, Worldwide TOP Partner OMEGA is ready to record their dreams as the event’s Official Timekeeper. With a programme featuring 239 events in 32 sports, including four new sports, OMEGA is prepared for the challenge with its equipment deployed across all venues and thanks to its historic expertise and modern innovation.
To complete the job, OMEGA has arrived with 80 tonnes of equipment, which includes 125 sports scoreboards, 22 TV graphics generators and 60km of copper and fibre optic cabling. To ensure every moment runs smoothly, there are also 235 timekeeping professionals and technicians who will be supported by 450 trained volunteers.
Raynald Aeschlimann, President and CEO of OMEGA, said: “The Youth Olympic Games is an incredible stage for the stars of the future. It's a true privilege for OMEGA to be here once again and we’re excited to be timing the very first results of many legendary sporting careers ahead.”
Many of the OMEGA technologies are the exact same as those that the brand uses at the Olympic Games. These includes the Scan’O’Vision MYRIA photofinish camera, which can take 10,000 digital images on the finish line of events, as well as starting blocks with built-in sensors that measure the slightest false start in athletics.
New sports, new measurements
“Feel the Future” is the motto of Buenos Aires 2018, and youthful new events – such as sport climbing and roller speed skating – will also give OMEGA some timekeeping duties it has never undertaken before. In sport climbing, the brand will employ its famous touchpad technology. Interestingly, this will be just the second Olympic Games sport, after swimming, where athletes stop their own time. In roller speed skating, the brand will rely on many of its legacy timekeeping technologies, including the Scan’O’Vision MYRIA, lap counters and photocells – which stop time as soon as the first tip of a skate crosses the finish line.
OMEGA and the Youth Olympic Games
OMEGA has served as Official Timekeeper at all four of the previous Youth Olympic Games, beginning in Singapore in 2010. Buenos Aires 2018 is just the third summer edition of the event and OMEGA is certainly looking forward to sharing the results with the world.