British Triathlon celebrates best ever Olympics

Brownlees’ success sees television ratings and media coverage rocket

Published: August 15, 2012 at 8:17 am

British Triathlon is delighted to have played its part in the success of Team GB, with 65 medals having been won across nineteen different sports. It was Britain’s most successful Games since 1908 and the first time that a British triathlete has ever won a medal at the Olympic Games.

Alistair Brownlee memorably became the Olympic Champion, with Jonathan Brownlee claiming the bronze medal behind Spain’s Javier Gomez. Helen Jenkins finished fifth despite a less-than-perfect build up to the Games.

Every British competitor was grateful to the huge crowds in Hyde Park and the surrounding course including the south side of the Serpentine, The Wellington Arch, and Buckingham Palace.

"The race was unbelievable and the crowds were amazing," Alistair Brownlee said. "My ears are still ringing from all that noise.”

Estimates vary about the number of spectators that saw the Olympic triathlon. The BBC has quoted 300,000 as the figure for the men’s race, but this doesn’t include the large numbers at Live Sites around London and the rest of the country.

4.7 million watched the women’s triathlon on the BBC, which resulted in the spectacular photo finish between Nicola Spirig and Lisa Norden. 5.6million people watched the men’s race. This is by far the biggest TV audience ever to have watched a UK based triathlon, with the previous highest having been less than two million.

National newspaper coverage has increased by over 500% compared with the same period last summer, and the britishtriathlon.org website smashed its previous high point for visitors by over 300% on 7 August.

Social media also played a very significant role for the first time ever at an Olympic Games. British Triathlon’s platforms saw significant increases in traffic, whilst Alistair Brownlee doubled his number of Twitter followers to nearly 50,000 (ahead of Jonathan with 35,000).

All of Britain’s triathletes have now returned home and are already in training for the ITU World Triathlon Series events in Stockholm (25-26 August), Yokohama (29-30 September) and the Grand Final in New Zealand (20-22 October).

And, they will already have in the back of their minds that the 2013 ITU World Triathlon Series Grand Final will take them back to Hyde Park next September.

Image: Janos Schmidt