Longines official timekeeper for 2008-2009 Alpine Skiing WC

The start of the 2008-2009 skiing season also marks the return of the world champion downhill skier Aksel Lund Svindal from Norway. Aksel has been one of Longines’ ambassadors of elegance since 2007 and was unfortunately injured in Beaver Creek the same year. The prodigy from the far north is back on form and will be competing again this winter. Longines is proud to be the timekeeper for the first World Cup race in Levi and would like to take this opportunity to wish him every success during the season.

Longines is looking forward to its partnership with the FIS for the coming ski season because, like the competitors themselves, Longines sees each race as a challenge to be faced in a constant and thrilling effort to achieve a faultless, perfect performance.

Longines’ history is closely linked to that of sports timing. Skiing requires strength, technique and precision, which reflects the demands and accuracy of the craft of watchmaking.

It was way back in 1933, in Chamonix that Longines first worked on the impressive ski pistes. Since then, winter competitions have been an opportunity for the brand to showcase its skills, thanks to the many technological inventions that have come out of the Longines workshops: the photoelectric cell light-beam (1945), the first luminous results board (1962), measurement of the competitors’ times to one thousandth of a second (1964), automatic recording at 100 images per second with integrated individual times (1971), measurement of competitors’ times to one ten thousandth of a second (1973), superimposing “Longines Timing” on television screens (1975), to mention but a few!

Each era has brought with it new demands; the difficulties encountered in sports timing have changed massively. For the men’s downhill, for example, 5 intermediate times and 2 speed checks are now required by the FIS as well as the final result. And this means precision to one hundredth of a second!