Swiss watchmaker Omega for official 2012 Olympics timekeeper

30 may 2006

Swiss watchmaker Omega for official 2012 Olympics timekeeper

Watchmaker Omega from Switzerland has signed a £25m ($47.1m) deal naming it the official timekeeper for London's 2012 Olympics.

The Olympics organisers said the latest deal means that 60% of the major sponsors of the 2012 Games have already signed up and McDonalds, Visa, Coca-Cola, GE and Atos Origin are the big-name international backers so far on the list.

Omega has already signed up to be official timekeeper of the 2008 Beijing Games and the company had the same role at the recent Winter Olympics in Turin.

The 2012 Olympics will mark its 25th event in which it is timekeeper for sporting Games.

International Olympics Committee (IOC) organisers have refused to reveal how much money they hope to raise from sponsorship deals but when journalists asked whether its target was around the £1bn mark, IOC marketing commission chairman Gerhard Heiberg said: "If we end up like you are indicating, we will be happy."

Olympics organisers also said that they were looking for a further four to six big names to join the current main sponsors for the event.