Yesterday saw the completion of the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck (Austria), finalised with a closing ceremony, a handover to the next hosts (Lillehammer (Norway) in 2016), and comments from organisers on how the inaugural edition of the multi-sport winter event was a success both inside and away from the competitions.

One factor that may be looked into for comparision with future events is the viewing figures and broadcast statistics, and while local networks of a majority of participating nations were committed to screening live coverage or highlights of the proceedings, it can be argued that the most notable broadcaster of the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics (in terms of reach) was YouTube, as the online video giant showed highlights to a potential global audience as part of its official online coverage deal with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The hub page for the event, which will most likely remain with its official content archive online on YouTube (as have all Olympic events since the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin (Italy)), has collected over 1,250 subscribers (since the page was opened over 2 years ago in the build-up to the event), as well as 236 video posts (in 30 ‘playlists’) and over 734,000 total views (an average of 3,110 hits per clip). By comparison, the Games are thought to have had a total physical attendance of 100,000 over the 10 days of events and ceremonies.

Despite sounding low in comparision to what the 2012 Olympic Games in London (England) could reach, these figures might be considered as strong for what is the IOC’s newest and arguably weakest (in terms of viewer attraction) event. For this specific brand of event, the Winter Youth Olympics will now prepare for 2016 in Lillehammer, but will Norwegian support manage to help audiences increase both in the arenas and online?

IOC President Jaques Rogge said of the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics as a whole: “These were ten glorious days. The first ever Winter Youth Olympic Games have exceeded all expectations and laid solid foundations for future Youth Olympic Games. I can say we had excellent Games… the athletes were happy and we saw top sport.”

One of the final videos produced for the Games by the IOC YouTube (‘Innsbruck2012′) team was a short recap and ‘farewell’ clip, which can be seen below:

Crazy Matt Cazzy into all things hi-tech, gizmos and gadgets. If its just out, i want it. Loves watching tv on every device ever invented that can handle it

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