Newly released European broadcast and global social media figures have highlighted the success of cycling across all four disciplines at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games with high TV viewership and strong levels of engagement across social and digital media platforms. More than 11 million people in the UK watched Laura Trott and Jason Kenny bring home Gold for Team GB in the women’s Omnium and men’s keirin respectively on Tuesday 16 August on BBC One – the best audience across the whole Games on the BBC. These figures are actually better than those of London 2012 where Chris Hoy’s victory attracted 10 million viewers and Trott’s first Olympic gold was seen by 8.2 million people in the UK.
France 3 reached a 4.7 million peak audience during the women’s road race on Sunday 7 August – the 5th best audience of the Games in France. More than 4 million viewers also tuned in to France 2 for the BMX semi-final on Friday 19 August – just 2 million less than the Games high in France of 6.1 million who watched judoka, Teddy Riner, retain his Olympic title.
Strong broadcast figures were also achieved in Germany with 4.2 million viewers watching the finale of the women’s road race, and 4.5 million tuning in to watch the women’s mountain bike cross-country, which reflected an 18.4% audience share.
Viewing figures were up on London 2012 on NRK1 in Norway with 411,121 watching the climax of the men’s road race compared to 373,866 who tuned in in 2012.
The official Twitter hashtags were also used extensively by Olympic fans across the world with #CyclingTrack leading the way with #BMX close behind:
#CyclingTrack – 165,740 tweets #BMX – 161,796 tweets #CyclingRoad – 66,895 tweets #CyclingMountainbike – 11,793 tweets
The UCI’s global fan base grew by 5% during Rio 2016 to 1.5 million – almost double the usual growth rate over a two-week period. During the Games, www.uci.ch served 54% more visits and 92% more users compared to a similar period last year and with 41,000 visits, the women’s road race generated the most traffic on www.uci.ch during the Games.
The photo of men’s road UCI World Champion Peter Sagan warming-up before the mountain bike race hit 174,000 impressions – the most popular image posted on UCI’s Instagram account – uci_cycling – in the last three months.
UCI President Brian Cookson, said: “We are delighted with the success of Rio 2016 across all four cycling disciplines and I would like to thank and congratulate the International Olympic Committee and Rio 2016 Organising Committee for their support and the delivery of a spectacular Games.
“The Olympic Games provides a unique opportunity for all sports to reach new audiences and for us it is encouraging to see these really high TV audience figures and strong levels of global engagement across social and digital media platforms. It demonstrates the attractiveness and accessibility of our sports across its Olympic disciplines and beyond.”