New data issued by national gym & fitness group, Better, has revealed which Olympic sports are the most popular across the UK.
Leading UK charitable social enterprise, Better, which has leisure centre facilities offering 95% of all Olympic sports, has analysed search popularity for every sport in the Olympics in Paris. Aiming to discover which sports have the UK population most excited following Paris 2024, Better’s UK search ranking looks outside of the ‘classic sports’ such as football and rugby.
Better has sought to explore less mainstream sports associated with the Paris 2024 Olympics in France this summer. Overall, in terms of the ranking for average monthly searches, kayaking came out on top, followed by tennis, swimming, and basketball.
Strong performances from Team GB athletes helped to boost week-on-week search interest in the UK for endurance sports in particular.
Tracking weekly searches for specific sports – comparing peak weeks, where events took place at Paris 2024, with the week prior to those events – there are considerable uplifts for triathlon, swimming and cycling.
- Triathlon searches soared by 231% week on week, peaking at 57,000. The highpoint for triathlon searches during Paris 2024 was eight times that of its typical 7,000 weekly level throughout the year.
- Swimming witnessed a 107% increase, with search interest peaking at 199,000.
- Cycling saw a 71% week on week increase in search interest, reaching a 103,000 high point, well ahead of its typical weekly average of 60,000.
- Athletics searches surged 310% week on week, with searches reaching 22,000 during the peak week, up from a typical weekly average of 5,000.
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