MUMBAI: The XX Olympic Winter Games in Turin has become the single largest event ever screened on British Eurosport.

The Games, which were broadcast from 10 to26 February 2006 reached over 8.4 million viewers to out-perform even the Summer Olympics from Athens in 2004 and Sydney in 2000. British Eurosport broadcast over 361 hours of coverage from Italy, with 51 per cent live, over the 17 days of the Games.

The success of the event was matched across Europe where Turin scored the best Olympic Games' ratings on Eurosport with 140 million different viewers following the Olympic competition.

With 367 hours of broadcast, the Olympic Games drew twice as many viewers as the regular average for the channel.

Figure skating, alpine skiing and biathlon are amongst the best programmes. Exclusive live coverage of the preliminary ski jumping before the main competition broadcast on Eurosport on 12 February peaked at 5.2 million viewers.

The newly re-launched Eurosport.com website, with its enhanced live scoring and editorial content, also recorded good figures with more than 13 million visits over the 16 days of the Turin Games, double the volume of traffic as registered during the Athens Games.

Eurosport has attributed its success to its international editorial line. Expert commentaries, with consultants such as Alberto Tomba, and innovative shows such as Daring Girls contributed to reinforce Eurosport as the reference channel for the Games' coverage.

Eurosport was also involved on-site in Turin. As Official Olympic Broadcaster and partner of TOROC (Organising Committee of the XX Torino 2006 Olympic Winter Games), Eurosport became the first broadcaster to be present in the Olympic Sponsor Village with the Eurosport Pavilion. Over 400, 000 people visited the Olympic Sponsor Village in Turin and had the opportunity to be entertained in Eurosport's Multimedia space.