Omega Begins 200-Day Countdown to Sochi 2014

Omega, the official timekeeper of the Olympic Games, has officially kicked off the 200-day countdown to Sochi 2014. The Swiss manufacture invited Sochi Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov, branch director of the Organizing Committee Sochi 2014 in Sochi Alexey Hraban, the Sochi 2014 Ambassador Ilya Averbukh, and two-time Olympic champion bobsledder Alexey Voevoda, together with residents of the city, to the launch ceremony for the 200-day countdown.

Russia’s first Olympics (the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow were held when it was still the Soviet Union) are less than six months away. In advance of the event, Omega has stationed clocks in nine cities around Russia to count down the days, hours, minutes and seconds to the start of the Opening Ceremony on February 7, 2014. There are clocks in Sochi, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Pyatigorsk, Novosibirsk and Khabarovsk.

Sochi will be the 26th time that Omega has played the role of Official Timekeeper. At the ceremony, Hraban said of the manufacture’s involvement, “We are pleased to partner with OMEGA in preparation for the Olympic Games Sochi 2014. Through this partnership we can be sure that one of the most essential parts of the Games – the timekeeping – will be done at the highest technological level. Innovative technologies that OMEGA, the Official Timekeeper of the Olympic Games, will implement at the Games in Sochi have been successfully tested at all sites and are ready to record the time of the great winnings of the best world’s athletes.”

Photos courtesy Omega.