Michael Phelps ruled Twitter during Rio Olympics 2016

New Delhi: With five gold medals at the Rio Olympics 2016, US swimmer Michael Phelps became the most talked about athlete on Twitter followed by legendary Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt and Brazilian football player Neymar.

During the Olympics, over 187 million tweets were sent which led to 75 billion impressions (views on and off Twitter) of tweets, the company said on Wednesday.

Neymar`s game winning penalty kick for Brazil in a shootout versus Germany in the gold medal football match took top honour as the most exciting moment measured by Tweets per minute (TPM).

This was followed by Bolt winning gold in the 100-metre event for the third straight Olympics.

Swimming remained the most discussed sports on Twitter followed by football and track and field events.

US gymnast Simone Biles`s tweets became the most retweeted athlete tweets. Bolt came next followed by Argentine tennis player Juan M del Potro.

Twitter Moments kept fans around the world connected to the live #Rio2016 moments, tweets and conversations. With the new Rio 2016 section in Moments, fans had the option to follow country specific Moments feed.