Yahoo! also cited comScore data saying visitors to Yahoo! Sports Winter Olympics spent 314 million total minutes on the site, versus 218 million on NBCOlympics.com.
As far as Yahoo!'s search engine, the most-searched athlete was U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn, curling was the most-searched sport, and the company said searches for trivia such as "how heavy is a curling stone" and "why does Apolo Ohno yawn" were extremely popular. The top mobile search was the reported feud between Vonn and fellow U.S. skier Julia Mancuso. And Yahoo! added that many users sought information on the personal lives of U.S. athletes such as figure skater Evan Lysacek, snowboarder Shaun White, Ohno, and skier Bode Miller.
And the most clicked Olympics stories from the Yahoo! homepage: a private pre-race conversation between White and his coach that was accidentally broadcast; the controversy over the Canadian women's hockey team's gold-medal victory celebration; and swimmer Michael Phelps' announcement that he would retire following the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London.
With Canada's curling cougar, Norway's amazing pants and the Danish woman who cried after fans heckled her during a key shot (and who, by the way, is also a topless model), the Olympic curling competition was not short on interesting storylines. And plenty of Canadian luminaries showed up to watch their men go for gold vs. Norway and their Rodney-Dangerfield-meets-John-Daly pants. Donald Sutherland was in the house with Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper (see the photo). So was hockey coach Mike Babcock.Supposedly, Pamela Anderson was, too. But it's the average fans who make curling such a fun spectator sport. Between the spontaneous singing of "O, Canada," the duck calls (don't ask) and the various countries' chants, curling is full of color. And for the second time in just a few days, I got to see a Canadian team win a gold medal in the country's national sport in front of its fans. <p>Canada wins gold in men's curling from Mark Pesavento on Vimeo.</p>
Today I got to go to see the two powers in women's hockey -- Canada and the United States -- face off for the Olympic gold medal.
Canada is a hockey-crazy country. This is not a revelation; tickets for the U.S.-Canada pool play game (i.e. not an elimination game) were going for $1,500 each. But what you might not realize is that Canadians are just as crazy about women's hockey. I've been to a lot of sporting events in my life, and as the clock ticked down on Canada's 2-0 victory, the noise was as loud as anything I've ever heard at any major U.S. pro or college event. Take a look/listen:
The highlights of my trip up the mountain to Whistler:* Saw Lindsey Vonn win a bronze medal in women's Super G.* Out of a crowd of probably 5,000 people, I randomly ran into my L.A. friend Erin Smith walking around the Whistler village with her fiance Eric. They're getting married in a couple months. He seems like an awesome guy and I wish I had more time to hang out with them. * Had dinner with my friends Lisa Antonucci, Alan Springer and his wife Lauren ... and Bud Keane, a coach on the U.S. snowboard team that you might remember from this incident. Loved hanging out with him. He's an awesome guy and was totally on cloud 9 after Shaun White's gold medal. He always seems like he's just downed a six-pack of Red Bull, which is totally possible as they're a major sponsor of White's. * Saw Bode Miller downing beers and hitting on chicks at Longhorn Saloon as other members of the ski and snowboard teams looked on with amusement. Lauren Springer tried to get a picture with him, but the girls Bode had been talking to all night said he was a nice guy but would not take pictures. * Had Nate Holland's five-foot-nothing-tall girlfriend sternly lecture me for publishing this post that quoted Nate as telling Canadian snowboarders their pants were too tight. She did not deny that he had made the comments; she was angry that we published the post on his race day (as if I can control when he makes stupid comments to the media). My favorite part is while she's yelling at me, he's standing literally four feet away acting like nothing is going on. Talk to me, brah!
Fun day at Whistler, where my my coworkers Lisa, Alan and I watched Bode Miller and Andrew Weinbrecht win silver and bronze respectively. Weinbrecht, a talented young skier, had never been on the podium at a World Cup event, and here he is winning bronze. Good times. Should be a fun night at the US Ski Team house. Work purposes only, I swear. :)
It was an early morning to make the 7a bus to Whistler, but the 2.5-hour drive drive was simply gorgeous. Here are some of my pics from the ride up, plus my arrival at Whistler.
I'm at men's Super G today watching Bode Miller and Ted Ligety go for gold. I'm staying with some co-workers here tonight and heading to women's Super G tomorrow to see Lindsey Vonn go for gold No. 2 and Julia Mancuso go for her third medal here. More to come...
Most journalists would agree that we're not rooting for anything other than the story. After a great day at Cypress Mountain, I can say that journalists got exactly what they wanted: Shaun White throwing the Double McTwist 1260 -- a crazy move that crams 3 1/2 twists into two head-over-heels flips and defies the laws of gravity.
It's hard to express how dangerous this looks in person. First of all, the slope of the halfpipe run itself is incredibly daunting -- it's 550 feet long and the grade is about 18 degrees, which really looks more like 45 in person. It's terrifying. Then, when White soars off the 22-foot wall of the halfpipe and another 20 feet into the air, stretching his hang time for one last half-twist, you hold your breath sure that this will be his last jump. Somehow, he always sticks it. Far as I know, there have been no changes to the laws of physics in the 300 years since an apple dropped on Newton's head, so there has to be a limit to human possibility, right? Yet these guys keep stretching it, one "Double Mc" at a time.
With Shaun White going for gold tonight in snowboarding, I took a chance to get out of the city.Cypress Mountain is about 50 minutes outside of Vancouver -- a beautiful winding drive up a the side of a mountain and through a forest with a stunning view of the ocean, city and channel islands. White going for gold is what you might call a big moment. Everyone here feels it. The media center is packed and so are the stands. There's electricity in the air, and despite the recent bad vibes at Cypress (note the lack of snow in the photos), the energy here is palpable. White is an interesting figure. He's mainstream yet "core," one minute pitching his Target clothing line and Red Bull energy drinks while the next bemoaning the "Buzz Killingtons" who denigrate him for his financial success. He's a chill bro who just wants to thrash and scoop cash. Is that so wrong? The thing about the Olympic halfpipe you might not pick up from TV is just how steep the decline is. I mean, it's just huge. I was totally blown away by the sheer size of the drop and the height of the pipe's walls, and how much air these guys get during their tricks. They're braver than me.
Tuesday night in Vancouver, Yahoo! threw a party for its advertisers and corporate partners at our "Fancouver" space in the Yaletown area of Vancouver. Yaletown's kind of like Vancovuer's version of Sixth St. in Austin -- a mostly pedestrian area of shops, bars and clubs. Yahoo! rented out a Mini Cooper dealership there for the duration of the Games as a kind of combined marketing/work space. (If you're in the area, come on by for Wii and hot chocolate.) Another cool thing about my job is I occasionally get to hang out with people who do or have done interesting things. Last night it was Dominique Dawes (gold medalist in gymnastics in Atlanta; that's her in the blue dress), Sasha Cohen (SO tiny in person), Seth Wescott (2x gold medalist in snowboard cross, including his latest on Monday), Bryon Friedman (Alpine skiing), Ken Daneyko (hockey), Elvis Stojko (figure skating) and a few others. Anyway, have to run for now. Off to see Shaun White go for gold in the halfpipe. He's a chill bro, and totally core.
Executives at Yahoo! may have shed tears during the closing ceremonies at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, as comScore reported that Yahoo! Sports Winter Olympics drew 32 million unique visitors during the Games Feb. 12-28, compared with 19 million apiece for NBCOlympics.com and ESPN.com.
