Olympic Surfing in AsiaPac

Vast numbers in Asia Pacific used the Internet to follow results in the Olympics, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Australia, New Zealand and the People's Republic of China were especially keen.

One of China's biggest portals, Sina.com attracted a total of 27.7 million unique visitors to its Olympic domain during the course of the games, with its traffic closely linked to China's medal tally. On August 17, the day after China won five gold medals, the number of visitors spiked 56% compared to the first day of the Olympics, August 14. Traffic to the site jumped again on August 23 after China's gold medal win the previous day.

'Due to the five hours time difference between Athens and the PRC, the Internet turned out to play a significant role for sports fans in China', according to Hans Yu, MD of Nielsen//NetRatings China. 'The Chinese visited the Olympic sites in the morning to check the previous day's results and to view the event schedule'.

Seven out of ten visitors to the Sina Olympic web sites were men, peaking at 85% for the basketball section. By contrast, a site dedicated to the athletic performances of China's spring-board star Tian Liang drew more than 63,000 females or 45% of the site's total unique visitors. Traffic to 100m hurdles winner Liu Xiang's page grew 742% to 130,000 unique visitors the day after the historic Gold, China's first in track and field.

In Australia, visits to Seven's Ian Thorpe domain (www.ianthorpe.com.au) shot up to more than half a million on August 17, the day the swimmer broke the Olympic record in the 200m freestyle. Between the Olympic Games' start and finish, Ian Thorpe's web site drew more than 3.5 million visitors, mostly Americans (32%) and Australians (19%).

Page impressions for the four major New Zealand sports sites - NZ Herald Sport, Stuff Sport, XtraMSN Sport and TVNZ - grew 35% during the first week of the Games.

Nielsen//NetRatings' web site is at www.nielsen-netratings.com

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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