In our experience, Seiko is selected often as a watch used to celebrate historic events, and this example here - a 1998 Seiko 7N01-6A70 dress watch celebrating the 1999 Asian Speed Sakting Championship held in Japan (with original Seiko 7N01 instructions manual) - is no different.  And once one understands the firm connection between Seiko and the Olympics, it all makes sense.
 
1964 marked the resurgence of a post-war Japan onto the world stage as a first-rate economic power, most readily apparent in Tokyo hosting the Summer Olympics that same year. Seiko – despite having no prior experience in sports timing (much to Heuer’s chagrin, we're sure) – was named the official timekeeper, and began research and development in preparation for the games in 1961.

Even though head of Seiko's Watch Design Section Saburou Inoue noted his severe reluctance Seiko could devise suitable timepieces in time for the 1964 Summer Games - only a few years away - legendary Seiko President Shoji Hattori would not be dissuaded. 
 
Hattori may have been on to something, at least with the benefit of hindsight. And the Olympic Technical Committee recognized this, and its head noted, "We are not assigning official timekeeping to a Japanese manufacturer because the Olympics will be held in Tokyo, but because these are actual functional [timepieces], backed up by solid theory."
 
Now chosen as the official timekeeper of the games - the first to be held in Asia - and with a mere 17 months until the 1964 Summer Games, Seiko set to work. Multiple teams at Seiko worked overtime to develop timekeepers for the games, with attention paid to the specialties within Seiko vis-à-vis each event to be timed – to include swimming, crew, cycling, equestrian, and even canoeing, among others.

As part of Seiko’s R&D, and to commemorate its upcoming role in the summer games, it developed multiple advanced – and now legendary – stopwatches and wristwatches specifically for the Olympics.
 
Seiko was continuing to prepare itself to challenge Swiss dominance of the watch industry, via its massive investment in innovation and technology during the 1960’s and a strategic internal policy of encouragement and support of experimentation within.
 
For the 1964 Olympics, it paid dividends – Seiko, in full view of the world, had beat out Swiss manufactures for the honor of the official timekeeper and demonstrated what had been previously the exclusive right of Swiss watchmaking. Seiko had provided the timekeeping instruments (watches, stopwatches – both large and handheld, and to include quartz chronometers) to keep, record, and display time at exceptionally high levels of accuracy.
 
Seiko would go on to be the official Olympic timekeeper in the 1972 Winter Games in Sapporo; 1992 Games in Barcelona; 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer; 1998 Games in Nagano; and 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, as well as a slew of prestigious international games between 1966 and 2013.
 
But back to this Seiko here, celbrating the 1999 Asian Speed Skating Championships held in Japan that year.  The Asian Speed Skating Championships are a series of annual speed skating events held in Asia to determine the best all-round speed skater in the region. These championships also serve as a qualification tournament for the World Allround Speed Skating Championships, with the International Skating Union (ISU) organizing these competitions since 1999 – the year Seiko was selected to help commemorate this event.
 
For the uninitiated, speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on ice skates.  Types of speed skating are long-track speed skating, short-track speed skating, and marathon speed skating.  In the Olympic Games, long-track speed skating is usually referred to as just "speed skating," while short-track speed skating is known as "short track." Long track speed skating takes place on a 400m ice track, while short track takes place on a 111m track.
 
An international speed skating federation was founded in 1892 – the first for any winter sport – and the sport enjoys large popularity in the Netherlands, Norway and…South Korea (one of the two countries celebrated on this watch dial.  In fact, the origins of speed skating date back over a millennium in the North of Europe, especially Scandinavia and the Netherlands, where the natives added bones to their shoes and used them to travel on frozen rivers, canals and lakes. Later, in Norway, King Eystein Magnusson, later King Eystein I of Norway, boasted of skills racing on bone skates, so called "ice legs.”
 
Now on to the Seiko Spirit watch here itself - introduced its 7Nxx movement in circa 1993, the Seiko caliber came in a range of styles and dial colors, to include the gold one here - Seiko would cease production of the calibre in 2009.
 
Watches in the Seiko Spirit collection - between 1990 and 2019 - were only offered in the Japanese market, and are known as Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) watches, and are quite seldom seen outside of Japan.  The Spirit collection consists of a wide variety of different watches, ranging from sporty dress watches - like the one here - to retro quartz timepieces with LCDs to new editions of cult models like the “Ripley.”
 
This Seiko comes on its original stainless-steel bracelet, and with rugged travel case, instructions manual, and springbar tool.