I, along with much of the world, has been seduced by the 2024 Paris Olympics. The most exciting events I've seen so far haven't been measured in terms of points, goals, strength or distance, but in time. Be they on foot, bicycle, in a boat or pool, the fastest athletes win. Needless to say, time keeping becomes quite important.
With a slightly larger marketing budget than BREMOIR, Omega has been the Official Time Keeper of the Olympics since 1932, and its innovation this year combines high definition cameras with AI to produce 3D graphics and associated metrics that bring to life aquatic dives, volleyball spikes and gymnastic routines. They can even precisely measure the gap between the pole-vaulter and the bar. A photo finish is decided by a camera that records 40,000 digital images per second, as we saw in the men’s 100m final, which revealed that American Noah Lyles won by 5/1000th’s of a second.
This is a far cry from the 1924 Paris Olympics. (TAG) Heuer created the groundbreaking ‘Mikrograph’, the first stopwatch able to record down to 1/100th of a second. This watchcollecting article does a fantastic job of highlighting the innovations in timekeeping throughout Olympic history.
One of the enduring memories of the 2024 Olympics will be the buoyant home crowd chanting “Allez!” every time Leon Marchand’s head popped out of the water during his masterful swimming, urging him onto four golds. Such roars from the crowd will never be repeated in Europe’s largest indoor arena in Western Paris again, since the pool will be drained and the arena returned to hosting rugby matches for Racing 92.
Such a temporary experience lies in remarkable contrast to the venue where Marchand honed his skills in his hometown of Toulouse, in the enduring Piscine Alfred Nackache, named after the “Swimmer of Auschwitz” and 1941 200m butterfly world record holder, who was one of only two Jewish athletes to survive the holocaust and swim in the 1948 Olympics.
This building brings us neatly back to the design influence which has inspired BREMOIR’s range of watches. Art Deco’s preoccupation with aesthetics in an age of functional mass-production encouraged architect Jean Montariol, with the help of engineer Charles Baruteaud, to create a visually stunning 25 hectare sports park, which provided the community with three summer pools, two winter pools, two gymnasiums and stands for 2000 spectators.
The enormous outdoor pool has brought relief to metropolitans throughout the sticky French summers since its construction in 1931. Marchand himself grew up swimming there, and it’s sure to enchant locals for another hundred years. Like the Chrysler Building in NYC and the Eastern Columbia Building in Los Angeles, it may even inspire a BREMOIR timepiece in the future.
A full century has passed since Paris’s last Olympic Games; a competition of great importance as it achieved mass appeal, growing from 29 to 44 competing nations. It was covered by hundreds of journalists in print and radio, whilst introducing the closing ceremony we still see today – the raising of three flags: the International Olympic Committee, the current host nation and next host nation.
The Art Deco influence was apparent from the promotional material and the following year, Paris would host the event that heralded the advent of the Art Deco design movement, the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts.
Bravo France! Well done on a great Olympics, so far. The world hopes for more incredible races, records and times worth remembering.