Figure This

by Staff Writers on Jan 1, 1900

Tags: Figure | This

By the end of the games the site will have set new records for net traffic. The Atlanta Games site - the first Official Olympics site - received 187 million hits (approximately 33 million page views)

By the end of the games the site will have set new records for net traffic. The Atlanta Games site - the first Official Olympics site - received 187 million hits (approximately 33 million page views) during the competition period, reaching a peak of 17 million hits on August 1, 1996. It was a world record at the time. In 1998 the Nagano Winter Olympics site broke more world records.
A milestone was set on Day 14 (Friday, February 20) at 9pm Japan Standard Time during two simultaneous high-profile events - the gold medal competition in womens figure skating and the semi-final ice hockey game between Russia and Finland. Avid Olympic fans in the United States and Europe helped drive the traffic on the Web site to a world-record rate of 103,429 hits per minute.
This surpassed the record set only three days earlier, on Day 11 of the competition, when Japan won the K120 ski jumping Gold Medal. Within minutes of the winning jump at midday, traffic on the Web site soared to 98,226 hits per minute.
However, earlier this year the IBM-run Wimbledon.org received a total of 2.3 billion hits and at its peak registered 963,948 hits per minute during the fifth set of the Agassi vs.
Rafter semi-final match. By comparison the Olympics site is expecting a total of around 6 billion hits or 1.4 billion page views peaking at more than 1 billion hits per minute.
At times of peak traffic, such as when results or scores for a popular sport are posted, non-critical content such as large graphics and multimedia files will be shed from the site and restored once the traffic spike subsides.
The site has been up and running for a year and prior to the Games starting has been offering both news and information as well as ticket and merchandise sales. Up to 3,000 items can be turned and viewed through 360 degrees and the online store will continue to operate on the same site even at the peak of competition.

This article appeared in the October, 2000 issue of PC Authority.