Olympic Athletes' Homepages Enjoy Popular Run

Olympic Athletes' Homepages Enjoy Popular Run

As Korean Olympic athletes outperform expectations, their personal homepages are bulging with encouraging congratulatory posts. According to leading domestic internet community service Cyworld, 1.3 million people visited the homepage of swimming sensation Park Tae-hwan, who has so far taken a gold and silver medal since the Olympics started on Friday. His website scored a daily average of 10,000 page impressions -- which soared to 73,000 on Monday after his gold medal victory in the 400-m freestyle. A whopping 740,000 visited his site on Tuesday, when he added a silver in the 200-m freestyle. Daily page impressions on the website of gold-winning judoka Choi Min-ho's homepage also recently topped 130,000. He thanked visiting netizens for their interest, posting "Thank you so much for your support" online. But several hundred thousand web-surfers also visited the sites of judokas Wang Ki-chun, Kim Jae-bum and female fencing contestant Nam Hyun-hee, who missed out on a gold, to offer encouragement. A Cyworld official said, "Visitors also flock to the homepages of athletes who failed to win a gold, but fought well, such as weightlifter Lee Bae-young."   (englishnews@chosun.com )