Wednesday, 07 December 2005

SEIKO Extends IAAF Sponsorship until 2009

The 11th IAAF World Championships will be held in Nagai Stadium in Osaka Japan from 25 August to 2 September 2007. As part of the new agreement, Seiko will provide a state-of-the-art timing and measurement service ((c) PHOTO KISHIMOTO)

The 11th IAAF World Championships will be held in Nagai Stadium in Osaka Japan from 25 August to 2 September 2007. As part of the new agreement, Seiko will provide a state-of-the-art timing and measurement service ((c) PHOTO KISHIMOTO)

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    • SEIKO - State-of-the-art wind measurement for track and field uses ultra-sonic technology
    • The nerve centre of the SEIKO operation. All the sensitive timing equipment for the track is located here with the SEIKO operators and the judges. Results go on-line to Results provider EPSON for display on scoreboards, internets and commentator systems
    • Field events measured to the nearest 1cm but SEIKO Electronic Distance Measurement Systems (independently certified) are calibrated to accuracy of 1mm in 100m. Reliable and fast results guaranteed.
    • SEIKO Photo Finish systems give instant results and high quality colour images to allow judges to determine the final results extremely fast and accurately.

    1985-2009: 25 Years of Partnership

    SEIKO Corporation has reached a basic sponsorship agreement with the IAAF for a further 4 years, up to 31 December 2009 at the end of which an uninterrupted 25 years of technical service and financial support will have been completed.

    It was at the inaugural World Indoor Games, the precursor of the World Indoor Championships, at the Bercy stadium in Paris in 1985 that SEIKO first provided timing services to an IAAF event. Since then, SEIKO has supported the IAAF with timing and measurement services and financial contributions for 21 years, during which SEIKO has timed 9 World Championships and more than 110 other IAAF events.

    The new agreement covers the period 2006-2009 and includes the World Championships in 2007 in Osaka, Japan and in 2009 in Berlin, Germany, plus 21 other events, including the World Cross Country, the World Junior Championships and the prestigious end-of-season World Athletics Final.

    SEIKO’s timing services to the IAAF are central to the success of each event and comprise a full suite of equipment and personnel.  At the World Championships in Helsinki held in August 2005, SEIKO had a team of over 50 engineers on site for 18 days, and the equipment, all custom-built for the IAAF at a cost of over $4,500,000, required two 40ft container trucks to transport it! At each World Championships, SEIKO takes an average of 7000 measurements of time, speed and distance during the 9-day event.

    SEIKO’s 21-year partnership with the IAAF has benefited both parties. SEIKO has gained brand name exposure all over the world and its reputation as a leader in the timing industry has been enhanced through the error-free timing of the premier athletics events in the calendar. The IAAF has benefited not only from SEIKO’s reliability, but also from the leading-edge technologies that SEIKO has introduced during the period, including automated false-start systems, on-line photo-finish images and ultra-sonic wind measurement.

    On signature of the basic agreement, Mr. Kunio Maeda, Senior Executive Director of Seiko Corporation, said, ‘We are delighted to renew our agreement with the IAAF. The IAAF championships are consistently among the most viewed sports events in the world, and we look forward to contributing our technology to their success in the next four years. Our goal will be to deliver, as we always have, a leading-edge and 100% reliable service to all 23 events in the programme.’

    The President of the IAAF, Mr. Lamine Diack said, ‘SEIKO has been a loyal and trusted partner of the IAAF for over 20 years, and we are delighted to have the benefit of their technology and service for 4 more years.  No sport needs accurate timing more than athletics where thousands of results depend on 1/1000th second accuracy and that’s why we choose SEIKO.’