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.<\/p>\n
“Proud South Africans have crowded the streets as well as the internet, showing their support for our SA stars,” Google said in a statement.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Swimmer Cameron van der Burgh was the second-most searched South African Olympian, followed by runner Oscar Pistorius.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Pistorius, a double-amputee, made history when he reached the 400m semi-final at the London Olympics on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
On the list of fastest-rising news searches in the past week, Le Clos took the first, second, and third positions.<\/p>\n
Google said global mobile Olympic searches had increased 10-fold.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
In the past two days, South Africa made up 24 percent of Olympic-related searches on cellphones and tablets.<\/p>\n
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