42% of Britons are interested in the Olympics, fewer than ahead of the London and Rio games
This Friday, billions of eyes around the world will settle upon Paris and the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic games, sparking a fortnight of sport that will generate drama, create new household names and maybe bring home a few gold medals.
Olympic organisers will have hoped that this year’s games can trigger a bit more love than the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, enthusiasm for which was dampened heavily by Covid and the absence of spectators in the stadiums. Prior to the Tokyo games, 36% of Britons said they were interested in the forthcoming Olympics, significantly down from 46% ahead of the 2016 Olympics in Rio and the 51% interested in London 2012.
This time, just over four in ten (42%) Britons say they are interested in the Paris games, with one in eight (13%) being very interested. So while we can expect Brits to be more absorbed in the Paris games than their immediate predecessors, it does seem that the Olympics no longer resonate as widely as they did a decade ago.
A partial, but not full, recovery in interest can also be seen with the Paralympics, which will begin on 28th August. Three in ten (31%) Britons say they are interested in this summer’s event in Paris, up from the mere 27% interested ahead of Tokyo 2020, but down from the 37-38% interested ahead of the London and Rio games.
There is obviously a strong level of overlap between the 42% interested in the Olympics and the 44% figure for those interested in sport in general, but it is not universal. Only three-quarters (74%) of Olympics fans have a general interest in sport, while only seven in ten (71%) sports fans pay particular attention to the Olympics.
But although the Olympics will still excite a good degree of interest, the British public are rather sceptical of Team GB’s chances. Only a quarter of the public (27%) expect Great Britain to finish in the top five places on the overall medal table, slightly up on the 24% who expected such a placing ahead of Tokyo 2020, but pessimistic considering Team GB have finished in the top five in the last four games (including fourth in Tokyo).
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