London 2012 Olympics: Ten million viewers cheer on Adlington

Published on 31/07/2012 00:00

MORE than ten million television viewers tuned in to watch swimmer Rebecca Adlington’s bronze medal-winning performance for Team GB, according to viewing figures released yesterday.

The statistics found that
7.6 million also watched cyclist Lizzie Armitstead’s rain-sodden finish on The Mall as she became the first British athlete to make the medals table for London 2012.

Ms Adlington added to her two 2008 gold medals when she finished third in the 400m freestyle, with 10.1m watching on BBC1 and 600,000 watching on one of the BBC’s dedicated Olympics channels.

ITV1 had an all-day average of just 680,000 viewers on Saturday, the first day of competition. It drew only 6.2 per cent of viewers.

It was only marginally ahead of BBC3, which is being used as a sports channel during the Games.

The spectacular opening ceremony on Friday night drew 26.9m viewers at its peak. The average audience for the ceremony was 22.4m, the highest on BBC1 since 1996.

MARTYN McLAUGHLIN