PV Sindhu, India’s badminton sensation, and silver medalist in the singles event of the ongoing Rio Olympics, is the most searched Indian athlete on Google India. Sakshi Malik, who won a bronze in the 58 kg women’s freestyle wrestling, and ended India’s medal drought in 2016, follows her on the list.
The search numbers for badminton and wrestling took a giant leap following inspiring victories by Sindhu and Malik, and the performances of Kidambi Srikanth and Vinesh Phogat. Apart from these four, Dipa Karmakar, who created history by being the first Indian female to compete in gymnastics at the Olympics, was also one of the top searches. Sania Mirza, Saina Nehwal, Lalita Babar and Vikas Krishan made up the other top searches for athletes on Google India.
There has been a spike in traffic from the North East according to Google, including the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Meghalaya, Manipur, Sikkim and Nagaland. The states of Goa, Puducherry, Haryana and Uttarakhand complete the top 10 list.
"India is currently ranked 11th in the global trends in terms of searches for the 'Olympics' over the last seven days," the statement from Google said.
Apart from the Indian athletes, there has been considerable interest in India for the Jamaican sprinter, Usain Bolt, who recently won gold in the 100m and 200m races in Rio to take his career gold medal tally to eight.
US swimmer Michael Phelps, with a lifetime tally of 28 medals (23 gold, 3 silver, 2 bronze), Lin Dan, the two-time Olympic gold medalist Chinese shuttler, who defeated Kidambi Srikanth in the quarter-finals, and Wang Yihan are the other international athletes who have been trending in India in the past few days.
"Following her sensational move against world number 6 Nozomi Okuhara in the semi-finals of the women's badminton singles, PV Sindhu was the top searched Indian athlete, followed by debut medallist Sakshi Malik," the statement added.
