By Harlan Chapman-Green
Goodness, it was only last year we were talking about the watches of the Summer Olympics at Rio Di Janeiro. Looking at the recent accounts in the media about how poorly the stadia have held up over the past few months since the Olympics cleared off, it’s a shame to say the watches will last longer than the sporting spirit. On the other hand, like the Olympics, we here at WristReview are all about looking forwards to the future and there’s nothing better than to prepare for the Winter Olympics with Omega’s new take on one of our favourites, the Planet Ocean.
Now, we’re big fans of Omega watches as we are all able to appreciate the technology behind the watches, the real innovation that happens in the mass produced watch market is currently happening at Omega. As you may know already, Omega has its fingers in all sorts advertising pies from sports celebrities such as USA Olympic Swimmer and the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time, Michael Phelps, to acting heavyweights such as the silver screen legend George Clooney. You may have noticed that Omega also has a heavy presence at the Olympic Games, in fact, it’s been the official timekeeper of the games since 1932 which were held in Los Angeles
Omega returns this time to help get the preparations underway for the 2018 Winter Olympic games, which are being held in Pyeongchang in South Korea, their third consecutive bid for the games after having lost out to both Vancouver and Sochi in 2010 and 2014 respectively. To celebrate this Omega decided to launch their new watch in the colours of red and blue, the colours of the Korean flags (note both North and South Korea effectively have the same colours on their flags). The strap itself is a cool blue colour that matches the dial and bezel colours. The splashes of red are highlighted well and contrast with the blue, they can be found on the edges of the strap and the first 15 minutes of the LiquidMetal bezel, following on from Omega’s efforts last year where they updated the looks of the Planet Ocean range to incorporate a rubberised section of the diving bezel.
You’ll also find the word Seamaster on the dial coloured in red as well as the depth rating which still stands at a hardy 600m. This watch is available in the medium sized variant only at 43.5mm in diameter, however, if you’re unfamiliar with the Planet Ocean range in the metal I’ll tell you that they often wear even larger than their diameter because of how thick they are, especially the chronographs.
The watch is presented in a specialised box which is stark white both outside and inside, while it could become a dirt and scuff magnet over time, it’s visually stunning and can be kept in a sleeve to avoid dirt. The watch is supplied with a steel bracelet as well in case you decide the strap wasn’t your thing after all.
On the reverse of the watch is the open caseback revealing the in-house Omega Calibre 8900 Master Chronometer Co-Axial movement, a technical marvel if ever there was one. However, it’s obscured by an annoyance on the sapphire crystal itself, the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics logo has been printed on the caseback, while this is clearly a way of customising the watch for the event, it would’ve been better to see some sort of engraving on the rotor (or even a custom shaped rotor like that have done with the Bond watches in the past), would it not? I’m sure it looks better in person, but it seems like an oversight to hide the work that went into finishing this watch.
In a limited edition run of 2018 watches, this customised Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean watch for the PyeongChang Winter Olympics can be yours for around $6400. For more info, please visit omegawatches.com
