The Last Word

As the Official Timekeeper for the Olympics, there is a tremendous onus that comes with the role. After all, the Olympics is the world's stage where human excellence is measured down to the minutiae. By that standard, OMEGA's competence in the timekeeping field is also measured.

- Wayne Cheong

The start of the itinerary was met with little fanfare. We arrived at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in the early morning, waiting with the disembarked throng and watching the luggage carousel move around.

Despite the lazy morning traffic and barricades appearing nearer to the city centre, the journey to the Mandarin Oriental in Rue Saint-Honoré took about 45 minutes (a shy 12 minutes over from Google Maps’ estimated 33 minutes). OMEGA Hospitality Programme is pulling out the stops to warrant that everything goes like clockwork. From our stay at the Mandarin Oriental, which OMEGA took over for the duration of the Paris Olympics, to being able to attend the games, the entire operation was a welloiled machine. This sort of fastidiousness is not foreign to a company like OMEGA. Like their watchmaking, precision is paramount. Adherence to the schedule notwithstanding, there was the pressure of ensuring that the games’ timekeeping was 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.