MILAN — The United States men’s figure skating team secured a gold medal at the Milan Cortina Winter Games this week, while snowboarding star Chloe Kim added a silver to her Olympic collection.
Kim, a two-time defending Olympic champion, finished second in the women’s halfpipe final on Tuesday, falling short of a historic third consecutive gold. Seventeen-year-ancient Choi Gaon of South Korea claimed the top spot with a score of 90.25, stunning the American athlete who had mentored her leading up to the Games, according to NBC News.
“She’s literally a spitting image of me when I was her age, so it’s, like, really crazy to see,” Kim said of Choi in a post-competition interview broadcast on NBC.
The U.S. Men’s hockey team also began their Olympic campaign with a decisive 5-1 victory over Latvia, marking a strong start to their pursuit of a medal. The win came on the same day that American Nick Baumgartner narrowly missed qualifying for the snowboard cross finals, falling short by just eight-hundredths of a second, as reported by NBC News.
Interest in figure skating and snowboarding is particularly high among American viewers, according to a recent survey by Reviews.org. The survey of 1,000 Americans revealed that 62% were most likely to watch snowboarding events, while 56% expressed interest in figure skating. Ski jumping (58%), hockey (54%), and speed skating (53%) rounded out the top five most popular Winter Olympic sports.
The survey also identified the most popular sport in each state. Snowboarding dominated in the Western states, including California, Colorado, and Nevada. Surprisingly, Utah favored bobsledding, potentially due to the presence of the Utah Olympic Park bobsled, luge and skeleton track in Park City.
A separate poll conducted by Seton Hall Sports at the end of January showed similar trends. Figure skating was the most anticipated sport among Olympic fans (59%) and female fans (53%), while snowboarding garnered 42% of Olympic fans and 27% of female fans, according to ESPN.
As viewership patterns evolve, social media is playing an increasingly significant role in how Americans follow the Olympics. Reviews.org found that 72% of Americans plan to watch the Milan Cortina Games, but 64% intend to catch clips on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, surpassing traditional television and cable viewership (59%) and streaming services (57%).
NBC reported Thursday that viewership of the Milan Cortina Olympics is up 93% over the first five days compared to the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, averaging 26.5 million viewers across its platforms. This marks the most-watched Winter Games at this point since the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, according to Front Office Sports.
