The start of our itinerary was met with little fanfare. We arrived at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in the early parts of the morning; waiting with the disembarked throng watching the luggage carousel go round and round.

Despite the lazy morning traffic and barricades nearer to the city centre, the journey to the Mandarin Oriental on Rue Saint-Honoré took about 45 minutes (a shy 12 minutes over from Google Maps’ estimated 33 minutes). At OMEGA’s behest, Esquire Singapore got to experience the Paris Olympics.

OMEGA Hospitality Programme is pulling out the stops to warrant that everything goes like clockwork. From our stay at the Mandarin Oriental hotel that OMEGA took over for the duration of the Paris Olympics to being able to attend the games, the entire operation was a well-oiled machine.

This sort of fastidiousness isn’t foreign to a company like OMEGA. Like its watchmaking, precision is paramount. Adherence to the schedule notwithstanding, there’s the pressure of ensuring that the timekeeping of the games is up to snuff. OMEGA has to oversee 329 Olympic events, across 32 sports, operate 435 scoreboards and manage 530 timekeepers and professionals to operate the equipment.

Timekeeping has always struck me as an insurmountable charge. A Sisyphean task. Time has existed before homo sapiens and will continue to exist after our sun dies out. Our mammalian brains dream up of how to stem it, control it even, but we can’t corral a wild and bestial presence. You can’t mount it and break its spirit. We are rocks that are worn down by time’s rushing waters.

So, no. Linguistically, we cannot “keep time” as much as we can master it. But we can catalogue its passing. We can categorise it into months and days, into easily digestible numbers. We can capture its ghost in photographs and videos; even record human achievements. Mea culpa if I sound profound, wanky even. Given that Paris has been the cornerstone of almost every influential philosophical movement, it’d appear that I’m caught up in its environment.

Throughout our tenure at the Games, there will be brief pockets for ponderance. For now, we revel in the now; as we wait in the lobby for our room keys; awed by the vertical garden with the OMEGA logo and the glass-cased line-up of special limited-edition Paris Olympics timepieces.

“TIME MOVES IN ONE DIRECTION, MEMORY ANOTHER.”

In human memory, we have always considered OMEGA as the official timekeeper of the Olympics. But it wasn’t the first.

That distinction goes to Longines at the inaugural Athens Olympics in 1896. After that, timekeeping for the next several Olympics was handled by a myriad of watch brands. During that period, timekeeping was dependent on stopwatches, with devices that were accurate to 1/5th of a second at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. For the Los Angeles Olympics in 1932, OMEGA was appointed as the sole entity to time the games. A lone OMEGA watchmaker accompanied 30 rattrapante (split-second) stopwatches that were flown from Biel/Bienne to LA.

With this split-second feature, it allowed for intermediate timings to be recorded. What, also elevated OMEGA’s (and the Swiss reputation) timekeeping status at the time was that said stopwatches were accurate to the nearest 1/10th of a second. This would be a race for watch brands; to develop more precise timekeeping devices.

The year 1948 saw the birth of electric timekeeping, where OMEGA first introduced the photoelectric cell or “Magic Eye” at the St Moritz Winter Olympics and then at the London Olympics. Used in tandem with the slit photo finish camera invented by the British Race Finish Recording Company, the devices proved useful during the 100m sprint of the 1948 London Olympics: Two American runners, Harrison Dillard and Barney Ewell, clocked the same time of 10.3 seconds. It was only after examination of the photo finish image that Dillard was given the gold medal.

OMEGA would continue its timekeeping position until the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, where the duties were conferred over to Seiko. OMEGA would retake the timekeeping appointment for the 1968 Mexico City Olympics before it fell into Longines’ hands for the 1972 Munich Olympics. The title of official timekeeper would return to OMEGA leading to this year’s Paris Olympics.

With this split-second feature, it allowed for intermediate timings to be recorded. What, also elevated OMEGA’s (and the Swiss reputation) timekeeping status at the time was that said stopwatches were accurate to the nearest 1/10th of a second. This would be a race for watch brands; to develop more precise timekeeping devices.

“EVERYWHERE IS WALKING DISTANCE IF YOU HAVE THE TIME."

I’ve clocked in a great number of steps during my three days at the Paris Olympics. At the end of each day, my feet felt like they had traversed the globe.

Transportation to the games proved challenging with roads being blocked or rerouted. We had to alight from the bus at significant distances from the venues.

Aside from developing calves and setting dogs barking, the scenic route is quite something. You soak in the city's history as you traipse through boulevards, past classic Haussmannian buildings with their iconic wrought-iron balconies and homogenous façades. Sometimes, when the sun hangs high, its dappled rays light the structures just so; giving the city an added depth. Given that most Parisian dwellings were built in the 1800s and have been reinforced throughout the years, I’d wager that they will continue standing. We are ants trying to make homes in unmoving mountains.

OMEGA took over the Hôtel de Poulpry, Maison des Polytechniciens, turning the 18th-century mansion into a retrospective of OMEGA’s Olympic timekeeping history. The once-imposing architecture and the decoration of the Second Empire are now replete with the signature OMEGA red.

The OMEGA House started at the 2012 London Olympics, then followed by the Rio Olympics in 2016. “We’ve designed OMEGA House to really bring guests into the heart of the brand,” Raynald Aeschlimann, OMEGA’s president and CEO said. “There’s so much to explore and uncover, with surprises around every corner.”

Spread across multiple floors, the OMEGA House Paris holds interactive elements that members can be immersed in. After the trek, most of the guests lingered in the courtyard, strategically parked near the threshold where the wait staff emerged with seemingly endless light bites on silver platters.

Once sufficiently refreshed, we reconnoitre the inside of the hospitality house. The reception room carries the full timeline of OMEGA’s history with the Olympics and Paralympics. Venture within and you’d find different rooms dedicated to OMEGA’s watchmaking universe: there is a room about the brand’s timekeeping tech that is critical to the Olympic Games; there’s another where guests get to experience being an Olympic champion; there’s a space that delves into OMEGA’s association with space exploration (anchored by a large gold astronaut); an area committed to showcasing a collection of current OMEGA Seamaster watches.

There were celebrities that OMEGA invited to the Games and OMEGA House. At our time at OMEGA House, Chinese actor and recent OMEGA brand representative, Liu Shishi appeared with Aeschlimann to address the Chinese members. Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban sat behind us at a Women’s Beach Volleyball game; Kidman possessing some sort of ethereal glamour with nary a bead of perspiration in the afternoon heat. Daniel Craig—post Loewe campaign side bangs—swung by the OMEGA House, again sporting a never-before-seen OMEGA timepiece that would be revealed later in the year.

When it came to the closing night of the Paris Olympics, the party at OMEGA House was a star-studded affair. Personalities like actor Ariana DeBose, triple jumper Jordan Diaz and swimmer Katie Grimes graced the event. In his closing speech, Aeschlimann remarked about witnessing OMEGA’s timekeeping at the heart of the Games and how the Olympics brought the world together. “It’s been an honour to welcome guests and friends to OMEGA House from all corners of the globe.”

“WHILE IT MAY SEEM SMALL, THE RIPPLE EFFECT OF SMALL THINGS IS EXTRAORDINARY.”

In 2019, the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan would spill out into the rest of the world. On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 as a pandemic, with the weekly global death toll at 650; it would rocket to a reported global death of 49,959. Going into the following months, the number showed no signs of abating, which didn’t bode well for Tokyo, which was scheduled to hold the Olympics in July. Concerns were rife, and after careful consideration, the Tokyo Olympics would be rescheduled to 23 July 2021.

There is a glint of silver in that thundercloud.

While the mood of the Tokyo Olympics was sombre, it was a welcome distraction. Sans physical spectators, participants risked exposure to the coronavirus and pushed the limits of the human body. One of these athletes was Quan Hongchan.

Discovered by her coach, Quan joined the Guangdong diving team in 2018 and took part in the regional competitions, winning gold medals that year and the next. By the end of 2020, Quan earned her place on the national team. The following year, she placed first in a competition, qualifying her for the Chinese Olympic team. Her presence at the Tokyo Olympics garnered Quan, not only as the youngest participant but also three perfect 10 scores for the Women’s 10m Platform.

Had the Tokyo Olympics proceeded as scheduled, Quan, then 13, would not have been able to compete due to the age limit set by the International Diving Federation. One might argue that even if she missed out on the Tokyo Olympics, she would still excel at future events. But in the throes of a pandemic, seeing someone like Quan compete with such mastery and at such an age felt like the outline of hope, of a future.

“HARDER, BETTER, FASTER, STRONGER.”

Like previous Olympics, throughout the Paris Olympics, OMEGA used its timekeeping equipment, along with pieces of updated tech.

One such advancement is the use of Computer Vision. It tracks the athletes in their respective fields and collects a range of performance data that are extrapolated by AI and machine learning. For diving, a system of cameras is trained on the divers, from their jump to their entry into the water. From the data, a 3D vision of the dive is created, along with the calculated metrics, like airtime and speed into the water. The cameras also track the safe gap between the diver and the board during their routine; if the minimum distance between the two isn’t maintained, it might factor into the final score.

Even without the equipment, it was clear that China was dominating the finals of the Women’s Synchronised 10m Platform event. We watched slackjawed at Chen Yuxi and Quan Hongchan perform with such synergy that when the camera was filming them from the side during their flight, the two divers looked like one body before the waters betrayed twin rip entries. Chen and Quan nabbed gold with 359.10 points, putting them at a stunning 43 points ahead of the runner-ups.

“We have always done extremely well with the timekeeping,” Aeschlimann says. “We have covered the Paralympics since it first started but some of the games are difficult to time because, because of the [differing] handicap of every athlete of the same category.”

The technology that OMEGA used in the Olympic Games had been years of development and refinement. Take the equipment used for the track. Given that sound is slower than light, athletes in the furthest lanes would hear the starter’s pistol later than those who are closer. OMEGA replaced the conventional starter pistol with an electronic one that’s connected to speakers placed behind the starting blocks in the interest of fairness.

When the trigger is activated, a start pulse is given to the timing system before it plays a recorded “gunshot” all at once (as a visual aid, a light would flash as well). The starting blocks also have sensors that detect any false start through the athlete’s foot against the footrest.

Other than the Scan‘O’Vision ULTIMATE camera, located at the finish line are photocell technology that shoots out four beams of light. Replacing plastic finish tape, the winning time is recorded the moment a runner disrupts the beams.

OMEGA’s Quantum Timer replaces the mechanical stopwatches. With an enhanced resolution of one-millionth of a second, the Quantum Timer is five times more accurate. Driven by a micro crystal component embedded in the timer, the resolution is 100 times more than previous timekeeping devices.

In the waters though, that’s another story. Waters refract light, and capturing visuals is made more difficult when there’s splashing. Swimming lanes are equipped with their own high-speed camera that takes and sends 100 images per second. A lap counter placed underwater informs the swimmer of how many laps are left, should a swimmer lose mental count. To record a swimmer’s timing, OMEGA introduced touchpads positioned at both ends of the pool back at the 1968 New Mexico Olympics. Swimmers “stop the clock” by exerting pressure between 1.5 and 2.5kg (a swimmer’s wave or pull away during a turn in the water generates about 1kg of force); this is the most accurate way to measure time. Speed climbing (introduced at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics) is the second Olympic sport that has touchpads at the top of the wall.

There’s a lot that has gone into the Summer and soon also Winter Olympics, but the Paralympics proved to be harder to track. “We have always done extremely well with the timekeeping,” Aeschlimann says. “We have covered the Paralympics since it first started but some of the games are difficult to time because, because of the [differing] handicap of every athlete of the same category.”

Differently-abled Paralympians are in another classification to ensure a fair competition. A panel of medical and technical experts evaluate the athletes’ impairments in their performance in the sport. Each discipline has its own classification system, as are the individuals partaking in the sport.

Take para swimming for example. Athletes are allocated based on the impact their impairment has on swimming, rather than on the impairment itself. Depending on who is competing, if there are athletes with “extremely low visual acuity and/or no light perception”, the rest must wear blackened goggles during the race to ensure a level playing field.

Because of the personalised nature of the Paralympics, OMEGA had to tailor its tracking system for each Paralympian to safeguard the integrity of the competition and timekeeping.

It would be days later—4 August—at the Men’s 100 metres finals that OMEGA’s photo finish cameras were put to the test.

“TIME IS RELATIVE; ITS ONLY WORTH DEPENDS UPON WHAT WE DO AS IT IS PASSING.”

The 100m sprint is one of the highlights of the Olympics. Usually, over within 10 seconds, it is a race that is straightforward and boils down to the simple truth, “only the fastest win”. Usain Bolt remains the undisputed world record holder at 9.58 seconds. Since his retirement in 2017, people have been waiting to see if Olympic hopefuls could break the record.

For the Paris Olympics, the men’s 100m was the most tightly contested final in Olympic history as six out of eight sprinters, recorded top-25 all-time 100m records. The difference between the fastest in the field, Fred Kerley (USA) at 9.76 seconds and the slowest, Kenny Bednarek (USA) at 9.87 seconds was a mere 0.11 seconds.

Kishane Thompson (Jamaica) had been touted as the successor to Bolt and odds for him taking gold at the 100m race were favourable. Up against, Noah Lyles (USA), in raw timings, Thomson has him beat by four-hundredths of a second.

As sprinters pushed off from their starting blocks, they sped down the tracks, most of them neck to neck. It was anybody’s game in the first 80m before the camera swivels and we saw a blur cross the finish line. The word “Photo” appeared on the scoreboard—a photo finish. Thompson and Lyles were clocked in at 9.79 seconds, marking this as one of the closest finishes in Olympic history.

A deliberation took place as the sprinters stared at the scoreboard. According to RUNNER’S WORLD, Omega Timing CEO Alain Zobrist guessed that it took “official timekeepers and judges on site 10 seconds to determine the first two positions, so about 5 seconds each.” When those distressing seconds were over, Lyles was announced as the gold medallist. Lyles beat Thompson by five milliseconds.

The equipment used at the finish line was OMEGA’s Scan‘O’Vision ULTIMATE camera; a line-scan photo-finish device that captures 40,000 digital frames per second. You’ve seen the photo finish. This contentious picture is the result of one pixel-wide sequential image of the runners crossing the finish line. Although Thompson’s foot crossed the line, Olympic regulations state that only the athlete’s torso—not the head, limbs and feet—that reaches the edge of the finish line is the winner. And that’s where the red line and Lyles’ torso meet; at 9.784 seconds.

And the cherry on the top? Lyles, who is OMEGA’s brand ambassador, ran the 100m track while wearing a Speedmaster Apollo 8 Dark Side of the Moon.

“IT’S A MARATHON, NOT A SPRINT.”

On 15 May 2017, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced OMEGA would be the Games’ official timekeeper through to 2032; a hundred years since the Swiss company first took up the role for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. It was a momentous milestone that cemented OMEGA’s timekeeping capabilities and advancements.

But what happens when the 2032 Olympics is done and dusted? Another century for OMEGA? I’d reckon so. It’s the difference between a photo-finish and being leagues ahead of your peers; OMEGA falls squarely in the latter. As long as OMEGA continues to innovate; to better its current timekeeping tech. In a sense, their competition is itself. It’ll be a matter of endurance, to maintain the distance from the rest; OMEGA gets to be the final word in timekeeping.