Johannesburg – Gold medal swimmer Chad Le Clos headed the list of Google searches for South African Olympic athletes in the past week, the search engine said on Wednesday.
“Proud South Africans have crowded the streets as well as the internet, showing their support for our SA stars,” Google said in a statement.
Le Clos snatched gold from United States swimmer Michael Phelps in the 200m butterfly final on July 31. On August 3 he won a silver medal, tying for second in the men's 100m butterfly in 51.44s.
Swimmer Cameron van der Burgh was the second-most searched South African Olympian, followed by runner Oscar Pistorius.
Van der Burgh won a gold medal in London on Sunday, July 29, for winning the 100m breaststroke in a world-record time of 58.46s.
Pistorius, a double-amputee, made history when he reached the 400m semi-final at the London Olympics on Sunday night.
In the last seven days Le Clos also led searches for the fastest-rising South African. He was followed by searches for Phelps and Olympic medals.
On the list of fastest-rising news searches in the past week, Le Clos took the first, second, and third positions.
Google said global mobile Olympic searches had increased 10-fold.
“Although Olympic searches grew substantially across computer, smartphones and tablets, mobile devices had the highest week-over-week growth, demonstrating their unique role as tools to keep us informed and connected.”
In the past two days, South Africa made up 24 percent of Olympic-related searches on cellphones and tablets. – Sapa