Tennis, gymnastics and soccer are likely to be the most watched sporting events by Indians during the London Olympics 2012. Nine in ten (90 per cent) Indians are expected to watch the games this season, according to an online poll by global research company Ipsos.

Apart from television, viewership will also be gauged by smart phones and tablets. The study finds that 75 per cent Indian viewers intend to watch on television sets, 50 per cent will view through the internet, 24 per cent will watch the game on smartphones and 15 per cent on tablets.

Indians seems to be interested in following tennis (22 per cent), gymnastics (13 per cent) and soccer (11 per cent) most closely, followed by track and field (10 per cent), swimming (10 per cent), boxing (8 per cent) basketball (6 per cent), volleyball (5 per cent), wrestling (4 per cent), weightlifting (3 per cent) and cycling (3 per cent).

According to the study, Indians are more interested in tennis, boxing, wrestling and weightlifting as we expect Indian players such as Sania Mirza, Leander Paes, Vijender Singh, Sushil Kumar, Mary Kom among others to bring home Olympic medals.

The online poll of 18,623 respondents in 24 countries finds that interest in the games is very high among Indians, with more than eight in ten (85 per cent) reporting they are interested in the Games (43 per cent strongly, 42 per cent somewhat) and only 15 per cent reporting they are not (12 per cent not very interested, 3 per cent not at all interested). However, a majority of Indians (51 per cent) indicate they are ‘worried that a terrorist attack will happen during the Olympic Games’ – 19 per cent strongly agree, 32 per cent somewhat agree.

Globally almost three quarters (72 per cent) of residents in 24 countries plan to watch at least some part of the events this year. The Ipsos poll finds that global citizens appear especially interested in following track and field (20 per cent) and soccer (20 per cent) most closely, followed by swimming (16 per cent), gymnastics (14 per cent), volleyball (5 per cent), tennis (5 per cent), basketball (4 per cent), boxing (3 per cent) and cycling (2 per cent).

Purvita@thehindu.co.in

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