Media coverage of Australia’s performance at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has been led by female Olympians, analysis by realtime media monitoring provider Streem shows.
Female Australian Olympians were in the news more than male Olympians on 12 of the 16 days of competition, taking a clear lead during the first week of the Games as Australia’s female swimmers led the team to our greatest-ever performance in the pool. The gap narrowed in the second week, when the performances from Peter Bol, Ash Moloney, the Boomers and other male Olympians broke into the headlines.
The Olympic Games joined Coronavirus in dominating the news, with the Olympics and Coronavirus accounting for 90 per cent of lead spots on major news websites at their peak, with the Games representing about a third of that share.
Golden swimmers our most prominent
Our female swimmers also led the top 10 most prominent Australian Olympians during the Games, with the top four spots going to Ariarne Titmus, Emma McKeon, Cate Campbell and Kaylee McKeown, all of whom saw significant rises in profile during the Olympics. Patty Mills was the most prominent male Olympian, with Kyle Chalmers and Peter Bol also making the top 10.
Big moments launch surprise stars into media spotlight
Every Olympics features athletes shocking their way into the headlines, and Tokyo was no exception. Ash Moloney’s Bronze medal in the Decathlon as he was cheered on by Cedric Dubler, resulted in a boost of 3530 per cent to Moloney’s profile and 1900 per cent to Dubler’s. Peter Bol galvanizing the nation as he ran his way into the 800m final saw his profile grow by 3165 per cent, and Harry Garside’s Boxing Bronze growing his profile by 1682 per cent.
In terms of the most-covered sports, Swimming led the way, with a 13.1 per cent share of voice, closely followed by Athletics, with a 10.5 per cent share.
Streem’s media relations manager, Jack McLintock, said the nature of the coverage reflected an Olympic Games that had risen beyond gloomy predictions to be seen as a ‘golden games’ for Australia in the media.
“The top four words mentioned on social media when talking about Tokyo 2020 were: win, gold, medal, and women; and you can see that positive tone permeate the coverage of the Games in Australian media.
“Our record-setting dominance in the pool cemented Swimming as the most talked about sport during the Games, but the cavalcade of shock and iconic moments during Athletics made it a close second.
“Australian media also picked up on the shock performances of international athletes, with Italian athletes Lamon Marcell Jacobs, winner of the Men’s 100m, and Gianmarco Tamberi, who shared the High Jump Gold medal with Mutaz Essa Barshim going from no presence in Australian media to hundreds of mentions during the Games.”
