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China, US Compete for Most Visitors to Beijing 2008 Olympic Site

After a tight race between China and the United States, China clicked away with the gold in the number of visitors to Beijing2008.cn, the official website of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, according to a comScore study.

Beijing2008.cn attracted 16.5 million visitors during the first ten days of the Olympics, August 8-17, with China accounting for 4.3 million visitors (25.7%), edging out the United States with 4.1 million visitors (24.8%).

Canada ranked third with 937,000 visitors (5.7%), followed by the United Kingdom with 853,000 (5.2%) and Australia with 463,000 (2.8%).

English-speaking countries represented four out of the top five countries and approximately 40% of total visitors to the site. The site offers Olympic content in five languages: Mandarin, English, French, Spanish and Arabic.

Of all global regions, the Asia-Pacific region accounted for the most visitors to the site with 7.5 million (45.4%), followed by North America with 5 million (30.5%) and Europe with 2.7 million (16.3%).

“It’s exciting to see that the official Chinese Olympics site was built in a variety of languages so as to attract visitors from across the globe,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. “Once again the internet, like the Olympic Games itself, shows that we are truly becoming a world without borders.”