Diver Daley is acclaimed as social media champion of London 2012

By Stuart Newman

August 20 - Tom Daley may have won bronze in the diving pool at London 2012 but he also landed a lesser known gold medal – in the social media Olympics.

The British teenager (pictured top) has been confirmed as the world's most popular Olympian after finishing top of a social media survey to find the "virtual-world champion" of the Olympic Games.

Daley attracted the most Twitter followers and Facebook fans during the 17-day competition with double gold medal-winning sprinter Usain Bolt generating the second biggest number and swim king Michael Phelps – the most decorated Olympian of all time with 22 medals – the third greatest.

In the final reckoning Daley had 1.2 million Twitter followers and 820,000 Facebook fans, with Jamaican Bolt having 960,000 Twitter followers and one million Facebook fans, and Phelps one million Twitter followers and 820,000 Facebook fans.

Daley's Team GB squad had reason to celebrate after also picking up a virtual gold for social media's most popular team, thanks to 365,000 Twitter followers and 840,000 Facebook fans.

Team GB_medallists_19_August

Team GB's medallists were responsible for the host nation striking gold in the social media Olympics

Silver went to the United States, which had 160,000 Twitter followers and 200,000 Facebook fans, with Japan taking bronze, courtesy of 20,000 Twitter followers and 60,000 Facebook fans.

The figures were collated by Starcount.com, a social media leaderboard company, which analysed the social media popularity and engagement metrics of the athletes and teams throughout the Games.

The results were revealed through some 1.5 billion consumer likes and responses across a range of social media channels, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, plus Sina Weibo and Tencent which are popular in China.

The top ten athletes (with their number of followers/fans/viewers) were:

Pos	Athlete	Country	Sport	Twitter	Facebook	YouTube	Sina Weibo	Tencent
Gold	Tom Daley	Great Britain	Diving	1.2m	820,000	2.3m	N/A	200,000
Silver	Usain Bolt	Jamaica	Athletics	960,000	1.0m	10,000	N/A	220,000
Bronze	Michael Phelps	United States	Swimming	1.0m	820,000	N/A	100,000	N/A
4th	Gabrielle Douglas	United States	Gymnastics	620,000	590,000	N/A	N/A	N/A
5th	Jessica Ennis	Great Britain	Athletics	440,000	680,000	70,000	N/A	N/A
6th	Sun Yang	China	Swimming	N/A	N/A	N/A	2.0m	N/A
7th	Ryan Lochte	United States	Swimming	900,000	120,000	5,000	3,000	N/A
8th	Liu Xiang	China	Athletics	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	2.0m
9th	Lin Dan	China	Badminton	N/A	15,000	N/A	N/A	1.3m
10th	LeBron James	United States	Basketball	280,000	240,000	5,000	N/A	N/A

The top five teams (with their number of followers/fans/viewers) were:

Pos	Country	Twitter	Facebook	YouTube
Gold	Great Britain	365,000	840,000	90,000
Silver	United States	160,000	200,000	6.3m
Bronze	Japan	20,000	60,000	N/A
4th	New Zealand	5,000	80,000	N/A
5th	Australia	15,000	40,000	80,000