Longines' Celebration of Gymnastics

In 1912, when Switzerland's budding amateur athletic associations decided to stage the country's national track and field championships in the city of Basle, Longines was already an 80-year-old company with quite considerable sports timing experience acquired, among other places, at the newly re-established Olympic Games, with timers and chronographs of its own design.

But that year in Basle, Longines had more to offer. Much more. In particular an astute trip-wire timing system that constituted the first of many significant advances in sport timing—up to today's high-performance MTS 600 system that adds such invaluable speed, flexibility and precision to gymnastics timing and scoring procedures.

All this to say that while Longines' love affair with sport goes back a long time and continues to involve vast expenditures of energy and ingenuity, it has lost none of its passion. As the years passed, Longines timed and helped score all manner of winter and summer competitions. In 1989, the company proudly announced its appointment as official timekeeper of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) for all international events in the artistic and rhythmic disciplines, selected Longines watch designs furthermore benefiting from an "Official Watch" status. Over the next few years, the company's teams of engineers and timing experts honed their skills at the international gymnastics competitions held year after year, gradually developing unrivalled expertise in this specialized area.

With ever greater understanding came ever stronger admiration for the artistic, athletic and human qualities of gymnasts of both sexes—along with a desire to salute the finest among them with a concrete, tangible memento of their excellence. That memento was to be the Longines Prize for Elegance consisting in a trophy by the Swiss artist Piero Travaglini and a Longines wristwatch. Established in 1997, it has been regularly awarded ever since, first to female and now also to male athletes.

Unlike purely sport-related distinctions, the Longines Prize for Elegance is awarded on the basis of a broad set of criteria. Nominees are judged according to such "emotional" yardsticks as beauty, charm, charisma and what might be called "innate elegance", in keeping with the personal tastes of an unusual "mixed" jury which, whatever the competition and the venue, includes representatives from the media and the fashion industry along with local and international sport personalities as well as, in every case, Longines president Walter von Kaenel.

In 1997, the very first Longines Prize for Elegance was awarded at the World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships, held in Berlin, to Natalia Lipkovskaya, of Russia, while Ekaterina Serebryanskaya was the ambassadress of Longines. Click here to see the first and the second photo of the Olympic Champion. A year later, that country also provided the second prize-winner, Svetlana Khorkina, at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in St. Petersburg. Later that same year in Sevilla, the Spanish women's team at the World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships collectively received the Longines Prize for Elegance. It was followed in 1999 by the Hungarian gymnast Viktoria Frater who received the Prize in Budapest at the European Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships, and Elena Vitrichenko, of Ukraine, rewarded in Osaka at the World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships. A few days later, at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in the Chinese city of Tianjin, Svetlana Khorkina of Russia won her second Longines Prize for Elegance while this distinction was for the first time presented to a male athlete, Chinese gymnast Lu Yufu.

What Longines has given to gymnastics, the sport has returned with interest. The company's close association with this elegant discipline has for instance enabled it to recruit as its ambassadress to rhythmic gymnastics events and circles none other than Alina Kabaeva , a young athletic prodigy who, since 1998, has won such an impressive series of rhythmic gymnastics competitions that she is the reigning world champion! Her poise, composure and natural grace make her a perfect representative of the elegance and aesthetic values which Longines holds in high esteem. During the European Chamipionships 1999, the Prize of Elegance was given to Ester Dominguez by Yelena Vitrichenko, the former winner.

Longines is also privileged to be able to count as its collective ambassador the men's artistic gymnastics team of the P.R. of China. Its impeccable precision and discipline yielded impressive results at the recent World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, held in Tianjin (China). The crack 7-man squad received no less than four gold medals plus a bronze—an eminently successful demonstration of the Longines philosophy in action.

With the Longines Prize for Elegance and its choice of ambassadors to world-class competition gymnastics, the company confirms its overriding preoccupation with elegance everywhere—from the world's most prestigious sports arenas to the countless venues of everyday life. "Elegance is an Attitude" affirms Longines' worldwide communication. And more than ever a way of life !