Canadian ice dancing darlings Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir captured imaginations online during the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, as did U.S. skier Gus Kensworth and questions around the sport of curling.
Global social analytics firm Talkwalker crunched the numbers and revealed the highlights on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
As of Feb. 24, there were 14.6 million mentions of the Olympics across those three social media platforms.
WATCH: Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir talk about Olympic experience and being fans after competition
Talkwalker found the U.S. was responsible for the largest share of posts (58 per cent), followed by South Korea, Canada, Japan and the U.K. However, a spokesperson for Facebook said Canada was the most engaged country on that platform.
Due to the time difference, a lot of the posts (9,000) referencing Olympic results were prefaced with a “spoiler alert” notice.
Olympic gold medallists, Virtue and Moir, lit sparks on social media with their heated performances on the ice. Many observers were convinced they were a real-life couple while others just hoped they were. The pair was mentioned more than 358,000 times online.
https://twitter.com/miss_meaux/status/963498299360792576
Twitter Canada said Moir was the most mentioned Canadian athlete on Twitter during the Games, followed by his partner Virtue.
Snowboarder Mark McMorris and figures skaters Patrick Chan and Eric Radford rounded out the top five.
WATCH: Scott Moir, Tessa Virtue talk about returning home after Olympics
Moir has more than three times the amount of followers than he did when the Games started on Feb. 9, Twitter Canada said. Virtue’s following increased by two-and-half times.
https://twitter.com/TwitterSportsCA/status/968122880067284992
On Facebook, Virtue received the most mentions of all Canadian athletes, followed by Moir and then McMorris. Internationally, Shaun White, Red Gerard, Adam Rippon and Chloe Kim were talked about ahead of the Canadian ice dancing duo.
The three most talked about sports on that platform were figure skating, curling and snowboarding.
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Watch: Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir ‘on top of the world’ after Olympic gold
According to Twitter Canada spokesperson Cameron Gordon, the top most discussed sports on Twitter by Canadians during the 2018 Olympics were:
- Hockey
- Figure skating
- Curling
- Freestyle skiing
- Snowboarding
- Short track
- Speed skating
- Bobsleigh
- Alpine skiing
- Cross country skiing
READ MORE: Are Tessa and Scott together? The world wants to know everything about the Canadian figure skaters
U.S. figure skater Adam Rippon also became quite the social media sensation during the Games. There were more than 734,000 mentions of him online since the opening ceremony.
U.S. snowboarder Chloe Kim captured hearts — and stomachs — as she tweeted about her snacks and ice cream picks during her halfpipe runs.
READ MORE: U.S. Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy questions why Ivanka Trump was at Olympics
And, another U.S. athlete — skier Gus Kensworthy — who is also an openly gay Olympian, created some buzz after cameras captured him kissing his boyfriend at the bottom of the ski hill following his race.
He shared a screen capture of the moment on Instagram while saying, “My childhood self would never have dreamed of seeing a gay kiss on TV at the Olympics but for the first time ever a kid watching at home CAN!”
While Canada’s performance in curling may have fallen a bit short of expectations, online messages about the sport did not.
Saturday Night Live’s Leslie Jones was offering commentary on different sports during the Games.
The comedienne was particularly stumped by curling.
“This is the worst shuffleboard game I have ever seen,” she joked on Feb. 10.
“Is it like marbles? I don’t understand. I’m going to bed on that one.”
Watch: Twitter comes with new ways for Canadians to share their Olympic excitement
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