Usain Bolt remains London 2012 TV's top draw
Jamaican sprinter’s Olympics 200 metre semi-final attracts highest sporting television audience of the day
He’s already wowed 20 million BBC viewers with his lightning fast gold medal-winning 100 metres performance on Sunday night, but television viewers' appetite for all things Bolt is not on the wane it seems, as Usain’s 200 metre semi-final became the most-watched Olympic event of yesterday.
An 11.3 million peak audience tuned in to BBC1 and BBC Olympics 1 to see the Jamaican sprinter Bolt into tonight’s 200 metre final for a rematch against 100 metre silver medallist and fellow countryman Yohan Blake.
Elsewhere 2.6 million people watched Team GB’s Nicola Adams beat Mary Kom in a lunchtime bout on BBC1 and BBC Olympics 4, ensuring the Briton is guaranteed a silver medal in the first Olympic women’s boxing competition.
BBC3’s peak Olympic audience of the day came from Team GB’s women’s 2-1 hockey defeat to Argentina. 1 million people watched the game on the digital channel, with a further 159,000 stick-waving fans enjoying the action on BBC Olympics 4.
Online, the BBC enjoyed 6.8 million unique UK visitors to their sports website yesterday, with a further 9.1 million checking in from around the globe, a good proportion of whom were probably disappointed to find that live coverage is not available online in their territory.
