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2022 Beijing Olympics off To Strong Start on Social Media

Posted on by kayleij

Any fear there may have been of over-saturation with two Olympics within 12 months of each other was quickly put to rest as the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games began on February 4. Despite COVID-19 concerns and international rumblings about China’s appropriateness as host nation, nearly 2,900 athletes from 91 countries/national organizational committees turned out for the chance to earn medals in an international spotlight.

On social media – as one would expect from such a blockbuster global event – there has been excessive discussion, cheering, and news dissemination from countries around the world. From Feb. 1 – Feb. 7, the Olympics have been mentioned more than 2.465 million times, with a reach of 61.96 billion – the world’s population multiples times over, based on unique content often reaching the same audience members repeatedly.

Between Feb. 3 and Feb. 4, the night of the opening ceremonies, discussion surged, escalating from 347.9K mentions to 604.6K mentions over just one day. While the volume has since dropped and plateaued, the daily number of mentions still hover around a steady average of 375K.

Top themes of tend to focus on specific sports – notably, the bigger-ticket events like figure skating and ice hockey – as well as broader discussion surrounding the event itself as well as Beijing and China. The United States is generating the most content by far with more than 619K mentions; Canada and the United Kingdom follow with just over 90K mentions apiece. The host nation, China, lands sixth on the list with 29,197 mentions across social media.

Political pressures are evident in top posts, however; many posts coded with positive sentiment focus on the Opening Ceremony, wins, teams, and the hashtag #togetherforasharedfuture. Meanwhile, negative mentions have their own bunch of unique terms: boycott, genocide, communist, and human rights, to name a few. While international concerns are nothing new in Olympic history, individual post output and vocalization of personal opinions on social media has certainly grown over the last few years.

While Russia is currently leading the way with 7 medals and Canada follows close behind with 6, let’s take a look at a sport-by-sport breakdown to see which events are medaling in the digital sphere. With fewer events than the summer games, it’s much more manageable to keep up with the conversations! [All data comes from a window of Feb. 4 – 12:00 p.m. EST, Feb. 7]

 

  • Alpine Skiing: 24,161 mentions. Top subjects are the U.S.A.’s Mikaela Shiffrin (who suffered a disappointing fall in a recent round) and France’s Johan Clarey (who just won the silver medal, becoming the oldest Alpine skiing medalist ever).
  • Biathlon: 46,432 mentions. Bucking the trend of U.S.-centric content, much of the conversation is in French, as France earned silver medals in two biathlon events so far and seem to have taken to the Internet to celebrate.
  • Bobsleigh: 10,465 mentions. The United Kingdom takes the lead in volume of content here, due to a widely circulating meme of several lambs in a trough captioned as the “bobsleigh team from Shropshire.”

  • Cross-Country Skiing: 14,302 mentions. Norway’s Therese Johaug is a frequently mentioned subject, as she just won gold in the 15km skiathlon event.
  • Curling: 135,866 mentions (30,742 mentions with the Boolean addition of “Olympics”). Ah, curling. The Internet’s favorite sport is back. While nothing can top the glory of the Norwegian men’s team’s pants a few Olympics ago, trends indicate that audiences are tuning in – and getting invested.

  • Figure Skating: 89,855 mentions. The U.S.’s Nathan Chen and Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu are two of the top-billed skaters and conversation has certainly been circulating around these talented athletes as the short program event nears. Unfortunately, the U.S.’s Vincent Zhou made news this morning as he was forced to withdraw due to testing positive for COVID-19.
  • Freestyle Skiing: 16,237 mentions. Lots of drama has been going down in the freestyle skiing world! Sweden’s 21-year-old skier Walter Wallberg upset Great Britain’s iconic Mikael Kingsbury to win gold in the moguls event, while Chinese-American skier Eileen Gu, competing for China, is the subject of many op-eds and other opinion pieces about national loyalty and cheering conflicts.
  • Ice Hockey: 255,388 mentions (37,531 mentions with the Boolean addition of “Olympics,” since the NHL’s All-Star Game also occurred over this time period). In today’s not-remotely-shocking news, the U.S. and Canada women’s teams are absolutely dominating, outscoring their opponents by massive margins every game. Scheduled to meet in a clash of the titans at 11:10 p.m. EST on Feb. 7, discussion surrounds this high-pride game, as well as the American Brianna Decker’s injury in the very first game of the tournament plus controversy over the ROC-Canada game on Feb. 6.
  • Luge: 37,802 mentions. Much of the conversation around luge is in German, thanks to powerhouse lugers from Germany, such as gold medal winner Johannes Ludwig. Felix Loch and Max Langenhan also placed fourth and sixth, respectively, rounding out the top six with a solid three German competitors.
  • Nordic Combined: 5,958 mentions. For those who follow the Nordic combined event, the games have already have their share of controversy. Top discussions follow the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) response to three-time gold medalist Eric Frenzel and the German delegation’s complaint about how he is being treated while he quarantines for COVID-19 symptoms.
  • Short Track Speed Skating: 14,377 mentions. While the name describes the sport – speed skating around a short track – many viewers seem to be concerned about the more detailed logistics of said sport, with “rules” being a top theme associated with this sport.
  • Skeleton: 7,878 mentions (with the Boolean addition of “Olympics” already included). Skeleton, luge, and bobsleigh seem like equally dangerous sides of the same sporting die, and indeed media users seem to agree (with “luge” as a top overlapping term of discussion). Other discussions focus on Nathan Crumpton, an American Samoan skeleton athlete who rolled up to the Opening Ceremony and his role as flagbearer shirtless, in a tribute to the iconic “shirtless Tongan flagbearer” who could not attend this year.

    Sorry, not sorry.

  • Ski Jumping: 19,566 mentions. The icing on the terrifying-winter-sport cake, ski jumping fans got right to the point with lots of discussion about the gold medal, as well as the debut of the mixed team event. Slovenia won the first-ever mixed team ski jumping gold medal!
  • Snowboard: 68,969 mentions. It’s hardly surprising that a thrilling sport with some of the most dynamic personalities in the field (paging Shaun White, Chloe Kim, and the McMorris brothers) has drawn so many fans. Also not surprisingly, the U.S. and Canada wipe the board (pun intended) with snowboarding content.
  • Speed Skating: 33,151 mentions. The Netherlands’ medal count is like a who’s who of speed skating, with all five of their medals so far coming in either speed skating (4) or short track speed skating (1). Two golds, a silver, and a bronze for the full-length speed skaters isn’t too shabby at all.

The 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing continue through February 20!

 

Author: Kayleigh Jackson

 

 

Posted in Tracking News via Social Media Analytics