Well over 300 Team GB athletes are active on Twitter for the 2012 Olympics. The most popular athlete on Twitter, before the games was Andy Murray followed by ‘household names’ including Chris Hoy, Mo Farah and Tom Daley. Since the start of the games, all the athletes have seen a growth in the number of Twitter followers and it seems winning a medal can also seriously boost your Twitter followers.

Team GB cyclist Lizzie Armitstead  and swimmer Rebecca Adlington are the first two medal winners for 2012. Both are active on Twitter with Rebecca making reference to her followers in the post race interviews last night. Both athletes have seen a substantial boost in followers since the games.

Social Media Reconnaissance, BirdSong ranked 300+ athletes by their twitter followers on Thursday night, ahead of the Opening Ceremony using this base to compare growth of Twitter followers throughout the games.

Lizzie Armitstead has seen an almost 200% (193.16%) leap in followers, jumping from 15,385 followers on Thursday to 45,102 this morning.

Rebecca Adlington has seen her Twitter followers leap by almost 170% (167.29%) since Thursday night (64,010 followers to 171,093 followers this morning)

The Team GB Twitter account has also seen a boost in followers, jumping almost 50% since Thursday night, from 225,301 followers to 327,701 this morning.

The Team GB Fan Page has also doubled in fans over the weekend, jumping 122% since Thursday, from 87,658 fans to 194,876 this morning.

[Update] The award winning Men’s Gymnastic team have also seen a boost in Twitter followers, none more so than ‘front man’ Louis Smith has seen a follower boost of 237% between the the 26th July and the 31st July 2012. The rest of the team have also seen growth in their Twitter followers.

If a Silver medal can add almost 200% growth, and a Bronze medal almost 170%, what can we get for a Gold?