Top Ten Sports-related Keywords of 2004

What has been the news of the year 2004 among netizens? We looked up the sports-related keywords that drew the biggest number of web users on the three major domestic search engines, which are Naver, Daum, and Empas. We gave one to 10 points according to their rank at each site, and the most popular sports-related keyword turned out to be the “Athens Olympic Games,” followed by “soccer” and “Major League.”

From August 14 to August 30, the 28th Summer Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece, attended by all 202 member countries of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Since the first Games in 1896, this was the second time that the Olympic Games had been held in its birthplace. However, the Games were tainted with unfair judgments in gymnastics, large-scale doping scandals, and an accident in which a spectator interrupted a marathon runner. Since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Korea once again claimed a spot among the top ten medal-winning countries, ranking ninth by winning nine gold, 12 silver, and nine bronze medals.