Last week, the synergy-sponsorship.com blog published internet research by Hitwise, which used Olympic-themed search terms in a number of countries to arrive at data on the most searched for athletes in the Olympics category.
Although the Games created two truly global stars – Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt – who both showed up well in web searches across the world, local athletes figured strongly in each market, highlighting ‘the parochialism of sport and its part in building national pride/support,’ Synergy said.
The UK research, however, highlighted a second peculiarity that was not picked up on by the blog: the top four searched-for UK Olympians are all women, who may owe some of their popularity in internet searches, at least, to admiration of a non-sporting nature from the male population.
Marketers will surely take note of Victoria Pendleton’s top searched-for status in the UK – a fact no doubt related to the famous image of a naked Pendleton in cycling pose on the cover of the Observer Sports Monthly magazine before the Games.
Chris Hoy, winner of a hat-trick of Olympic gold medals in Beijing, came fifth in the web-search survey.
