GENEVA, July 14. /ITAR-TASS/. This year’s Olympic Winter Games in Sochi have surpassed the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver in popularity, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) says on its website.

A survey of 36,000 people from 16 countries by KantarSport revealed growing awareness and appeal of the Olympic Games and the Olympic brand.

Athletes and spectators surveyed at the Games in Sochi from February 7 to 23 rated their enjoyment of the Games very highly, primarily due to the standard of the sports competition, the quality of the venues and the atmosphere at the event.

The research, commissioned by the IOC after the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, was presented Tuesday to the IOC Executive Board. Both the Olympic Winter Games and Olympics in general were shown to have had the highest appeal of any sports or entertainment event surveyed.

Soundings recorded that interest in the Olympic Winter Games had grown by 13% between the Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014 Games with a record 114,000 hours of broadcast - a 101% increase during the same time span - available to 2.1 billion fans around the world.

Use of digital media to interact with the Olympics also increased with a 334% growth in 1.4 billion digital video views.

The XXII Olympic Winter Games took place in Sochi, on Russia’s Black Sea coast, from February 7 to 23. Russia topped both the gold and overall medal tables with 13 golds and 33 total medals.