The Winter Olympics has officially begun, an eyeballs all around Australia were glued to Nine’s broadcast over the weekend.
Whether it was the heart-breaking story of American alpine ski racer, Lindsey Vonn, Townsville’s luge icon Alex Ferlazzo or the opening ceremony, just under 2 million people were tuned in each night.
Sunday evening’s broadcast was headlined by the women’s downhill final, with 2,595,000 turning to Nine to catch the event. A further total TV national average audience of 1,280,000 witnessed Vonn’s catastrophic fall.
At the final World Cup downhill event before the Olympics Vonn tore her ACL. Reluctant to give up her fairy-tale Olympic ending, she persisted on competing with a torn ACL. Unfortunately, for the 41-year-old American, her dreams were shattered when a horror crash resulted in her fracturing her leg.
Vonn showed promising signs in the Games’ official training, posting the third fastest time. But things quickly took a turn for the worst in the main event, 13 seconds into her run the skier clipped the flag as she attempted to make a turn before landing awkwardly and twisting. She stayed down for several minutes and her screams could be heard as she was attended to by medics before being stretchered off the course and airlifted to hospital by helicopter.
Vonn’s teammate Breezy Johnson won gold, but her celebration was minimal as her friend was at the top of her mind.
Nine won the ratings on Sunday night with the final weddings on Married At First Sight. The episode that involved the wedding of Stella and Filip pulled in a reach of 3,152,000 and an average of 1,655,000.
Filip believed love was in the air, loving that Stella was also a morning riser and a health freak. But Stella’s friends had a completely different opinion, believing that the groom was only on the show to advertise his online coaching business. This lead to an all explosive confrontation between Filip and the bride’s maid of honour.
Saturday and Sunday were dominated by the Winter Olympics, the two first official days of Milano Cortina.
