Celebrity Life

We know sports and watches go hand in hand and watch brands have for a long time, been tapping the world's greatest athletes to become their ambassadors.

Still, it's exciting to watch these sportsmen in action, with their preferred timepieces strapped on their wrists in the moments of their greatest glories — as they win their biggest matches, break world records and take home medals. Here are just a few of the best watches and their owners, spotted at the Tokyo Olympics.

Mutaz Essa Barshim

Qatari high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim is a gold medallist at the Tokyo Olympics, sharing first place with Italian Gianmarco Tamberi. The two have come a long way from injuries and setbacks, and shared an emotional moment when the judge ruled that they can indeed tie for first place rather than have a jump-off. Barshim has long been an ambassador for Richard Mille and has the RM 67-02 named after him. The RM67-02 is extremely light thanks to its case made of Carbon TPT and Quartz TPT. The watch is fitted on what the brand calls a comfort band, an elastic strap that is entirely seamless and non-slip, a feat clearly on display as Barshim wears the watch during the entirety of the competition.

Armand Duplantis

The American-born Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis is an Omega ambassador and wears the Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra "Ultra Light", fashioned from a strong yet lightweight alloy called Gamma Titanium and weighs only 55 grams on the sports strap. The movement inside is also built from titanium. Duplantis is the current world indoor record holder with a height of 6.18 metres. He wins gold at the Tokyo Olympics and very nearly smashes his own world record en route.

Naomi Osaka

Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka, who also lit the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony, wears the TAG Heuer Aquaracer diver's watch with a white dial and matching with rubber strap during her match.

Yohan Blake

Known as the second-fastest man in history after Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake is also a Richard Mille ambassador and wears the RM 59-01, which he wears during the 100m race. The RM 59-01 is a manual winding tourbillon equipped with a special calibre designed for sprinters and is specially hand-painted in green and yellow in honour of the Jamaican flag - Blake's home country. Blake didn't manage to get into the finals for the race, but the man, and his watch, are still winners in our hearts.

Sydney McLaughlin

The athlete joined TAG Heuer as an ambassador earlier this year, and is spotted wearing the TAG Heuer Link with a ceramic case and diamond bezel during her 400-meter hurdles event — which, by the way, sees her setting a new world record and clinching gold.

Alexander Zverev

German tennis player Alexander Zverev captures Olympic Gold in Tokyo in the men's singles event. Zverev announced that he's joined the Rolex family earlier in June, alongside tennis heavyweights like Roger Federer and Dominic Thiem. He's spotted wearing the Rolex Skydweller off the court, as seen in this Instagram photo of him and his gold medal.

Belinda Mencic

Belinda Mencic, gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics in the tennis women's singles event and silver medallist at the women's doubles event, is seen wearing a two-tone Rolex Daytona on the stage.

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl is a German dressage rider and champion at the Tokyo Olympics. An ambassador for Richard Mille since 2016, she's spotted wearing the RM 07-01 in black ceramic with a diamond dial during the competition.

Stephanie Gilmore

In the first-ever surfing event at the Olympic Games, Stephanie Gilmore, part of the Breitling squad, is spotted wearing the bright orange Breitling Superocean.

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Our cover personalities tend to be extremely busy people – but we must admire the unwavering sportsmanship and animated demeanor displayed by both Cecilia Yeung and Nicholas Choi over the course of an eight-hour shoot on a Saturday evening.

The two professional athletes arrived on the set following a week of intensive training for their respective sports: high-jump and fencing. If they were exhausted – as we almost certainly would have been – they never once let it show as we put them through their paces. They arm-wrestled, jumped on trampolines, and laughed their way through a core workout together – and at one point, Choi even gave Yeung a bout of fencing instruction, but not before the high-jump master puts him through three rounds of an intense core workout.

Watch it all unfold in the video below.

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Fifty metres underground — this is the depth that local winemakers chose when they decided to store 10,000 wine bottles in the Aven d'Orgnac caves, an underground tourist attraction located at the southern end of the limestone plateau of the Gorges de l'Ardèche.

The experiment began in March 2018, when a new storage facility was specially created in a disused access tunnel to allow wine to mature in what amounts to a highly stable and peaceful environment.

A living product that ages best in undisturbed darkness, the wine will have benefited from ideal conditions: A constant temperature of around 12°C and an all-year-long rate of humidity of over 95%.

On December 12, 1,000 bottles of Côtes du Vivarais "Grand Aven 2017" from this treasure trove will be passed from hand to hand by a chain of human volunteers who will bring them back to the surface after two years underground. Thereafter, they will go under the hammer with a range of other local vintages in an auction with modest reserve prices.

Lots on offer will include 150 magnums of Terra Helvorum 2017 starting at 30 euros, 350 bottles of 2015 Terra Helvorum for as little as 15 euros and 350 bottles of Grand Aven 2016 from just 10 euros.

On land and sea

These days, experiments to store wine deep underground are very much in vogue in France. On June 3 of this year, 500 bottles were placed in racks at a depth of 103 metres in caves in Padirac under the watchful eye of Serge Dubs, the Best Sommelier of the World in 1989.

The first of these to return to the surface will be brought up for an initial tasting in the spring of 2021. And let's not forget that this experiment is focused on a very particular wine: A Clos Triguedina Cahors, christened Cuvée Probus, which has been produced to honour the 130-year anniversary of the Padirac Chasm.

Surprisingly enough, this new approach to maturing wine was initially inspired by a find at sea. In 2010, divers in the Baltic discovered a wreck containing what turned out to be a cargo of champagne, which was probably on its way to 1840s Russia.

The wave of experimentation that is now ongoing began when the bubbly, which was made by such houses as Veuve Clicquot, Heidsieck and the now defunct Juglar, was discovered to still be delicious after some 170 years under water.

In Saint-Jean-de-Luz in the French Basque country, winemaker Emmanuel Poirmeur has registered a patent for a process that involves vinifying wine in special vats at a depth of 15 metres under water. For its part, Leclerc-Briant set a record when it vinified one of its champagnes at a depth of 60 meters under the Atlantic in 2012, not surprisingly the vintage was christened "Abyss."

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