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Meltwater’s glance at Kenya, Africa reaction towards the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics have come and gone, with the games having officially concluded on Sunday 8 August 2021. Although the global pandemic was a concern, the city of Tokyo admirably organized and ran the sporting event with ease. Notably, the athletes also lifted their performances and delivered several memorable feats.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics certainly set the stage for outstanding performances, as well as conversations surrounding mental health, among other topics. There is no doubt that social media played a massive role in highlighting stand-out athletes as well as the importance of taking care of oneself, even if that means stepping away from the Olympic stage. Meltwater, the global leader in social analytics, took a glance at Kenya’s performance at the games for some social media reactions from the Olympics.

With more than 1.6 Million global social media mentions on this year’s Olympic games between 23 July and 8 August 2021, the data found that more than 40 000 of those mentions came from African countries. Uganda led the pack, contributing to 19 percent of the total social media mentions from Africa, with South Africa coming in second and Nigeria at third place.

African Heat Map of 2020 Tokyo Olympics social media mentions between 23 July and 9 August 2021 with world record holder Joshua Cheptegei winning gold for the Men’s 5000m race at the Olympics, mentions from social media users in Uganda were naturally high. News of Uganda placing second in the continent at the end of the Olympics also contributed to the high number of social media mentions in the country.

When it comes to the trending themes across the continent for the Olympics, the data found that “women” was a frequent word used in social media mentions in Africa. Mentions that contributed to this included reactions and engagement to a tweet from Antonio Guterres on how this year’s Olympics was the most gender-balanced game. A tweet from African Sports Today also gained attention among African social media users, where it was reported that “Former Polish sprinter Marcin Urbas has requested Olympics organisers to run a test on Namibian teenager Christine Mboma (18) to find out if she is a woman after she ran a semi-final time of 21.97 seconds in the women’s 200m race.”

Other trending themes include:

  • “Steeplechase” refers to this tweet from the official Olympics Twitter account.
  • “World record holder and “Olympic champion” which refers to Ugandan athlete Joshua Cheptegei winning gold for the 5000m event.

In Kenya some of the social media mentions were under 5000 mentions discussing #Tokyo2020 and Kenya’s participation in this year’s Olympics, online users in Kenya were certainly interested in the games as they contributed 9 percent to the total number of online mentions this year’s Olympics. Kenya’s Emmanuel Korir was quite the highlight for his event, the men’s 800m, where he went on to win his fourth gold medal.

Overall, the majority of online users from Kenya had neutral feelings about this year’s Olympics, most of which is attributed to retweets of other posts mentioning the #Tokyo2020 Olympics, such as mixed feelings about the games continuing despite the current global pandemic, as well as mixed feelings around the outfits from the opening ceremony.

Sentiment Analysis, in Kenya, for Social Media Users on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics between 23 July and 8 September 2021 showed that the 22 percent positive sentiment that the data analysed was primarily due to Kenyan athlete, Eliud Kipchoge, defending his marathon gold medal status at the games, and helping Kenya to become the best ranked African country at the Olympics, as mentioned by State House Kenya on Twitter.

The 1 percent negative sentiment was largely due to the data picking up this tweet from Sean_Cardo, and the reactions and comments that followed. One Kenyan social media user commented, “This images of Kenya’s 1968 Olympics team reception are amazing to see… Has our Gold medals familiarity brought contempt?”

Some key trending themes that have  emerged from Kenyan online users during the games include:

  • “Women” refers to this year’s Olympics being the most gender-balanced games to date.
  • “Third Kenyan athlete”, “Olympics Marathon CHAMPION” and Greatest Marathoner” which refers to Eliud Kipchoge becoming the third Kenyan athlete to defend his Olympic title after David Rudisha and Faith Kipyegon. Outgoing IOC Athletes” and “better geographical balance” which refers to this tweet from Christian Klaue regarding the appointment of a Kenyan rugby player, Humphrey Kayange, to the IOC AC.