OMEGA’S SCORE FOR NADIA COMANECI

Montreal Summer Olympics (1976)

The first time Omega was Official Timekeeper for the Olympic Games was in summer 1932 in Los Angeles, and the Swiss watchmaker has continued in that role ever since. At each successive Olympics – spanning continents and sporting disciplines – Omega’s technical experts have been measuring performances, certifying times, determining velocities, cataloguing new records, declaring winners, registering photo-finishes, displaying lap times, etc. They’ve done this for 92 years without a hitch. Well, almost. On July 18, 1976, at the Montreal Forum, Romanian Nadia Comaneci, aged 14 and measuring 1.5 meters (5 feet), stepped up to the uneven bars to compete in the first event of the individual all-around artistic gymnastics. Her performance was flawless. She waited for her score. A murmur went through the audience as a score came up on the board: 1.00. The crowd gasped. Comaneci later recounted: “One of my teammates said to me: ‘I think it’s a 10 and there’s a problem with the scoreboard.’” Smart thinking. Prior to the competition, Omega had asked the organizers whether to update the scoreboards so they could display four digits. They were told there was no need. No gymnast had ever achieved that impossible 10.00, so why bother? They hadn’t factored in the prodigious talent of this young Romanian. In Paris, the Omega scoreboards will, of course, be configured to display four digits. Because you never know.