Start of the men’s 200m race in London, 2012, with the Omega time display in the background.
Start of the men’s 200m race in London, 2012, with the Omega time display in the background. Wikimedia / Nick J Webb

Swiss timekeepers at the Olympic Games

Timekeeping is hugely important in modern sport, which is increasingly competitive, professional and international. It has made remarkable progress since its early days. A look at the history of timekeeping at the Olympic Games, and the role of the Swiss watch industry and diplomacy.

Nils Widmer

Nils Widmer

Nils Widmer is a historian and a research associate at Swiss Sports History, and is doing his doctorate at the University of Lucerne.

The early Olympic Games of the modern period from 1896 onwards used only a few stopwatches to time races and determine the speeds of the gold medal-winners. According to the official report, the 100 metres at the 1896 Olympics in Athens was won by American Thomas Burke in a hand-timed 12 seconds. No time was given for the silver medal-winner. The mechanical stopwatches available at the time were guaranteed accurate to one fifth of a second.

At the end of the 19th and in the early 20th century, reliable and accurate timekeeping in sport became much more decisive as attention shifted to the competition itself and setting records became increasingly important. The organising committees of major sporting events such as the Olympic Games depended on reliable instruments, and were at the same time interested in technological innovation. The aim was to measure times as precisely as possible and thus ensure comparability, not just with competitors in the same race, but also around the world. Alongside chronograph accuracy, the human factor in particular was a potential source of error, as start and finish times were determined by pushing a button. During the 1930s the organising committee for the Olympic Games nonetheless continued to count on officials to record race times. In the interests of capturing times that were as reliable as possible and would stand up to maximum scrutiny, several people were responsible for measuring the time achieved by a single athlete in track and field competitions. This was despite electromechanical systems having been in existence for several years. These would automatically stop the chronographs when the finishing tape was broken, for example.
Omega ad page in the NZZ newspaper on 20 June 1952 marking the Olympic Games in Helsinki and the company’s 20 years as official Olympic timekeeper.
Omega ad page in the NZZ newspaper on 20 June 1952 marking the Olympic Games in Helsinki and the company’s 20 years as official Olympic timekeeper. e-newspaperarchives.ch
Longines ad page in the Journal du Jura on 3 March 1960, after the Olympic Games in Squaw Valley.
Longines ad page in the Journal du Jura on 3 March 1960, after the Olympic Games in Squaw Valley. e-newspaperarchives.ch
As the sporting world was demanding maximum timekeeping precision, chronograph manufacturers saw the huge marketing potential that the association with sport could hold. A number of companies in the Swiss watchmaking industry were vying with each other for the enormous prestige that their name would gain from providing the reliable instrumentation that sport was looking for. Chronographs from Swiss firms such as Longines and Heuer were used for timekeeping at the Olympic Games through to the 1920s, but in 1932 Biel-based watchmaker Omega achieved quite the coup. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) placed an order with Omega alone for the 30 chronographs that would be used to time competitions in all disciplines at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. They were able to measure time exactly, to a tenth of a second, and also had a ‘rattrapante’ function. This is a second, ‘split-second’ hand, which enabled them also to measure split times. Synchronised with the primary second hand when started, the split-second hand can be stopped independently, giving a read-out of split times without having to halt the entire mechanism. The technology secured Omega the status of official timekeeping partner to the IOC for the years that followed, but faced competition for its role in particular from its St. Imier-based compatriot firm Longines.
Fully automatic Omega chronograph from 1948. The four timers were triggered by the starting pistol and stopped using photo cells.
Fully automatic Omega chronograph from 1948. The four timers were triggered by the starting pistol and stopped using photo cells. Wikimedia

Post-war innovation

In 1948 at the first Olympic Games after the war, held in St. Moritz (winter) and London (summer), conventional manual timing methods were replaced by electronic instrumentation. For the first time the Olympics used a technology, developed by Omega, which employed photoelectric cells to determine the exact point at which an athlete crossed the finishing line. What’s more, in London officials used the very first photo-finish camera, developed by British Race Finish Recording. In addition to measuring the time precisely, it made it possible to establish the winner in very close races. The 1950s ushered in the era of quartz technology in sports timekeeping. The 1952 Olympic Summer Games in Helsinki were the first in which electronic timekeeping was used throughout. In recognition of the Omega Time Recorder, the Biel-based company received the Olympic Cross of Merit from the IOC for “outstanding service to the world of sports”. The recorder was able to time races to an accuracy of one hundredth of a second and immediately print the results. The years that followed brought a raft of further innovations in sports timekeeping, such as the display of split times in real time during ski races, which was used for the first time during the 1964 Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck.
Time display for speed-skating races at the 1964 Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck, showing the brand logos of Longines and Omega.
Time display for speed-skating races at the 1964 Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck, showing the brand logos of Longines and Omega. National Archives of Norway

Deploying diplomacy against the competition

A turning point in the historical ties between the Olympic Games and representatives of the Swiss watchmaking sector came in 1964. It shows that the history of timekeeping at the Olympic Games and in sport generally is not the preserve of the Swiss alone, even if the local industry likes to tell it as such. From the 1960s onwards timekeeping in sport became an arena for competition between the Swiss and Japanese watchmaking industries. The organising committee for the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo nominated Japanese company Seiko – the leader in quartz technology at the time – as its official partner. Seiko invested a great deal of money in developing chronographs and equipment for sports timekeeping, and proved adept at using its presence to boost sales in its wristwatch segment. The Swiss watchmaking industry, and Omega in particular, had previously also benefited from its close ties with the IOC. Seiko having broken the Swiss timekeeping monopoly in 1964, Swiss watch firms turned to Swiss diplomacy to restore their supremacy in the field. Diplomats were to advocate the use of Swiss technology with the host countries of major sporting events. This proved a successful tactic for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, when Omega was once again entrusted with timekeeping. The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry (FH) was one of the driving forces behind this strategy.
Mobile time display with Seiko advertising at the marathon in Tokyo, 2016.
Mobile time display with Seiko advertising at the marathon in Tokyo, 2016. Wikimedia
In addition to the threat from the Japanese competition, FH was dealing with another problem – the competition between domestic watchmaking companies, specifically Omega and Longines. Timekeeping for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich was a case in point. Following conflict, Omega withdrew and Longines assumed the timekeeper role in partnership with German company Junghans. Building on past efforts, especially since 1964, to unite sports timekeeping specialists within the Swiss watchmaking industry, in the wake of the 1972 episode FH, Omega and Longines joined forces to found Swiss Timing. It was to carry the torch of technical innovation in sports timekeeping within the Swiss watchmaking industry, and in 1983 passed to the Swatch Group as the Swiss watch sector found itself in the grip of crisis. Externally, the famous brand names continue to appear on time displays at the Olympic Games, and Swiss firms Longines, Omega and also Heuer took it in turns with Seiko to be official timekeeper.
Oemga explains athletics timekeeping technology in the Olympic Stadium at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. YouTube / Omega

Growing precision

Competition continued to fuel innovation in electronic timekeeping. From the 1980s onwards there was the option of processing the data generated by timekeeping devices by computer, transmitters were developed that provide data in real time and have been worn in disciplines such as speed skating since the 2000s, and timekeeping has become increasingly precise, down to millionths of a second. In Los Angeles in 1932 there were just 30 rattrapante chronographs and a single watchmaker responsible for their accuracy. By the 2021 Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo, timekeeping involved some 400 tonnes of equipment, 200 kilometres of cable and optical fibre, 85 time displays, around 500 members of staff and 900 volunteers to ensure that everything ran smoothly at the venues and on TV. In 2006 Omega again became the IOC’s official partner for all Olympic Games, with an exclusive contract as timekeeper up to 2032, which will mark the centenary of the original Los Angeles Games. To mark the 90-year anniversary in 2022 Omega brought out a luxurious pocket watch that paid tribute to the rattrapante chronographs of 1932. Further marketing campaigns emphasising the company’s long history of sports timekeeping can be expected to celebrate the 100-year anniversary. They are likely to focus on ideas such as tradition, precision and innovation, rather than domestic rivalry or diplomatic chess moves to keep the Japanese competition in check.

Swiss Sports History

This text was produced in collaboration with Swiss Sports History, the portal for the history of sports in Switzerland. The portal focuses on education in schools and information for the media, researchers and the general public. Find out more at sportshistory.ch

This article draws, among other sources, on the work of Swiss historians such as Pierre-Yves Donzé, Gianenrico Bernasconi, Marco Storni and Quentin Tonnerre, which examines topics such as timekeeping in sport, its diplomatic aspects, and competition between the Swiss  and Japanese watchmaking industries.

Published on: 16.05.2023

Modified on: 07.10.2025

URL: https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2023/05/swiss-timekeepers-at-the-olympic-games/

More of: 20th / 21st centuryEconomyTechnologySocietySportsSwiss Sports History

Further posts

Faith, love, hope: sport and religion

Michael Jucker 16.12.2022 How much religion can there be in sport? And has sport really become a substitute religion? A step back to Swiss wrestling festivals (Schwingfeste), jousting tournaments and monasteries.
Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s famous “Last Supper”: FC Zurich mural in the Calvados sports bar.

Flirty Tennis

Simon Engel 02.07.2021 Seeing and being seen is an important social aspect of sport. At one time, this was a particularly notable feature of tennis.
Tennis in Prangins, late 19th century.

The whole country is skiing! The whole country…?

Simon Engel 13.01.2021 For years, Switzerland has celebrated itself as a nation of skiers. Where does this self-image come from? Is it more of a myth, or more of a reality?
Switzerland – a nation of skiers: How much is reality? How much is myth?