Usain Bolt 200m storms to more than 15 million viewers

More than 15 million viewers watched Usain Bolt clinch his historic gold medal in the men's 200m Olympic final on Thursday. Bolt, who became the first man ever to retain the 100m and 200m Olympic titles, drew a five-minute peak audience of 15.4 million viewers at 9pm. This included 14.9 million viewers, a 57.8% share, watching on BBC1, and 490,000 on BBC Olympics 1. Bolt's second sprint gold was the sixth highest peak audience of the Olympics up until that point. BBC1's evening Olympics programme had an average of 9.3 million viewers, a 40.9% share, between 7pm and 10pm. All ratings are Barb overnight figures, including live, +1 (except for BBC and some other channels including Sky1) and same day timeshifted (recorded) viewing, but excluding on demand, or other – unless otherwise stated. Figures for BBC1, ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5 generally include ratings for their HD simulcast services, unless otherwise stated • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook .