The sports timers have one advantage over kitchen timers: they show hundredths of seconds, so you can see immediately if pressing the big START button worked, and get your eyes back out of the cockpit sooner.
Obviously, you will not actually need the hundredth of a second accuracy!
Try to get a flat screen: curved screens always manage to find some annoying sunlight to reflect back at you.
I didn't use a timer for my QXC, just a watch with big hour and minute numbers.
Good luck!