The biggest sporting competition in the world is currently underway and Oxford’s favourite Olympic sports have been revealed, according to new data.

The data from Better, a charitable social enterprise whose facilities offer 95 per cent of Olympic sports, analysed the search popularity for every sport at Tokyo 2020 to discover which ones people are most excited about.

The research highlighted the huge numbers of people eager to learn more about the sports on offer at the Games. In June alone, the Wikipedia pages of all the sports were viewed a total of 1.35 million times

Ben Cumberland, 18, an aspiring Olympian and Triathlete based in Vale of White Horse said: “Back in the 2012 London Olympics I was lucky enough to get tickets to an event and experience the Games.

“I was inspired to take up my sport thanks to a teacher at school whose son was part of the local Triathlon club and suggested I get involved.”

For young people thinking of getting involved in a new sport, he said: “Don’t be afraid to try something new!”

The research showed resident’s in Oxford are big lovers of tennis, mountain biking and skateboarding.

The top 10 list for Oxford looked outside of the ‘big four’ sports of football, boxing, golf, and rugby, exploring less mainstream sports at the Olympic Games this year.

Oxford’s top 10 Olympic sports:

The sports are ranked by their search popularity of average monthly searches.

1. Tennis – 520

2. Mountain Biking - 390

= Skateboarding - 390

= Trampolining – 390

3. Fencing - 320

4. Basketball – 260

5. Swimming – 210

6. Athletics – 170

7. Badminton - 140

8. Diving – 110

In 2021, there has been a total average monthly search volume of 3.19 million across the UK for the 46 sports taking place at the Olympics.

Trampolining was the most popular searched sport at 201,000 searches, followed by 165,000 searches for both mountain biking and skateboarding.

Tennis player Andy Murray was the most searched Olympian at 201,000 searches.