Queen’s Helicopter Entrance at Opening Ceremony Most Discussed on Chinese Social Media

Tencent, the leading online media company in China, today announced that the most discussed topic in China over the course of the Opening Ceremony was the Queen’s entrance via helicopter alongside James Bond.

According to Tencent Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, posts of support for China’s athletes were overtaken by the sight of the Queen leaping from a helicopter before entering the stadium to announce the start of the Games. 

“What touched me most about the London ceremony is that they made the 500 construction workers of the Olympic stadium the guardians of Olympic torch.”

Discussions in support of Chinese athletes were the second most discussed topic trending on Weibo via Tencent’s online media platform. The third most discussed topic was the flag bearers representing each country and which of them was the most attractive. According to posters on Tencent Weibo, the winner was Maria McQueen Dunn, representing Guam in the Women’s Freestyle Wrestling.

The fourth highest trending topic focused on which athlete would win the first gold medal of the Games. Chinese web users predicted that shooting athlete Yu Dan would get the first gold medal of the Games, but it was another of China’s shooting experts Yi Siling who won the first gold with victory in the women’s 10m air rifle.

Ma Yankun, Head of Tencent’s Frontline Reporting Team for the London Olympics, commented that, “The Games themselves have started very well, and we saw a huge level of interest in both the Opening Ceremony and the athletes across our services, with over 25,000,000 posts and 93,989,290 visits to our portal during and after the Opening ceremony. The Ceremony itself sparked a lot of debate, from comparison of the London Games with Beijing 2008 through to the National Health Service, British history and how those responsible for building the many new stadia that are now in place were involved in the Ceremony as well. The Weibo users also had a lot of fun on the service discussing how the event was put together, from the role that David Beckham played through to which country had the most attractive flagbearer.”

According to data provided by China’s Qinghua University Media Research Lab, Tencent and its portal for online services led the overall demand for content around the Olympic Ceremony. Tencent was ranked first as the online media platform used to access content around the Olympic Opening Ceremony with more than a quarter of all respondents, followed by Sina and Baidu. In the same research, more than 90 per cent of all respondents used PCs or laptops to access content, while just under 30 per cent used tablets or mobile devices.

Deputy Editor-in-chief of Tencent portal and the director of Tencent London Olympics Project, Wang Yongzhi, said “The research that we have seen around the Chinese audience during the opening of the Olympics is that they are accessing a mix of services in order to get content. This included video, Weibo and material created by the journalists that we are supporting at the event, while a significant number used both mobile and PC devices. With audiences acting in this way, it requires a truly integrated approach in order to reach them, whether this is for the purposes of delivering content or for marketing purposes.”