The summer of 2020 should have seen the Tokyo Olympics and the highlight for the major sponsor brands, but unfortunately, we had the New Crown epidemic first; the Tokyo Games were postponed for a full year without a live audience, but for the athletes, this top stage was indispensable; and for OMEGA, the top sponsor, the official Olympic timekeeper could not be interrupted!
For the 29th time, OMEGA is the official timekeeper of the Olympic Games. This mission began at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, where OMEGA was the first watch brand to be responsible for timing the entire event. Although the winner was still determined by a mechanical stopwatch at that time, technical measures were taken to improve accuracy.
In 1948 at the London Olympics, OMEGA introduced the first finisher’s camera and a photoelectric sensor that electronically stopped the time once the athletes had passed the finish line.
As the official timekeeper, OMEGA comes to Tokyo 2020 with a range of new technologies around motion sensing and positioning to provide coaches, analysts, commentators and spectators with a comprehensive range of real-time data. Motion sensor tags in the starting number will communicate with receivers around the stadium to track real-time position and speed, visualise acceleration and deceleration, and measure distance. A new electronic starting gun is connected to a loudspeaker behind each athlete, ensuring that those closest to the starter do not have the slight advantage of hearing the sound first. For this reason, OMEGA also developed their latest ultra-high-speed camera, which can take 10,000 digital images per second to ensure that the winner can be correctly identified.
To mark the occasion, OMEGA also launched three watches designed specifically for the Tokyo Games.
The first is the Seamaster Aqua Terra Tokyo 2020 Limited Edition. In a simple blue and white palette, it celebrates the ongoing partnership with the Olympic Games. Each watch is equipped with a Master Chronometer movement certified by METAS (Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology) to resist magnetic fields of up to 15,000 gauss.
The Seamaster Aqua Terra “Tokyo 2020” Limited Edition is equipped with the OMEGA 8900 self-winding movement and Co-Axial escapement. The dial is the first in the Aqua Terra collection to be made of ceramic and is presented in the indigo and blue chevron pattern used for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic logo.
The polished stainless steel 41 mm case is clean and minimalist, with only the screw-down crown, the blue colour of the dial and the structured blue rubber strap drawing attention to itself. The dial design is also clean, with a central hand chronograph and hour markers filled with white Super-LumiNova luminescence. The date window is at six o’clock and the back is sapphire decorated with the Tokyo 2020 logo and the five Olympic rings,replica omega watches an exposed rhodium-plated rotor and a bridges with trailing Côtes de Genève pattern.
The second, the Seamaster Planet Ocean Tokyo 2020, is another limited edition, featuring a striking white on white colour scheme with a splash of red in tribute to the Olympic host country. The case is 39.5 mm and features a white ceramic bezel with a Liquidmetal diving scale. The number 20 is filled with red ceramic, a subtle nod to the 2020 Olympic Games. The dial is also white ceramic with white hour-markers and hour-markers on a white background. The only colour on the dial is the painted red dot that embellishes the central seconds hand of the lollipop, a nod to the red sun on the white field of Nisshōki, the national flag of Japan. The OMEGA Master Chronometer calibre 8800 can be seen below the Tokyo 2020 logo on the sapphire back. With a white leather strap, it continues the clean white colour scheme
The third timepiece dedicated to the Tokyo Olympics is the Seamaster Diver 300M Tokyo 2020, which, although it shares its movement with the Seamaster Planet Ocean Tokyo 2020, combines the colours of both limited editions. Continuing the theme of clean, minimalist design in a combination of blue, white and a hint of red, the 42 mm stainless steel case features a blue ceramic bezel with white enamel diving markers. The white ceramic dial features a laser-engraved blue clean wave pattern with blue hour markers and hands filled with white Super-LumiNova. the hour markers give some character with lines and dots as hour markers,replica watches while a splash of red in the seahorse logo adds vibrancy to the dial. The movement is the self-winding calibre 8800 with the Tokyo 2020 logo, and the sapphire caseback bears the five Olympic rings.