The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing is setting gold metal results online with traffic between Aug. 6 and 9th soaring as more Olympic sports enthusiasts take advantage of online videos and web coverage - both at home and work.

According to Nielsen Online, NBC lead the pack in unique audience between August 6th and 9th, going from 841,000 unique visits per day at NBC Olympics sites to 4 million by Saturday.

But with so many Olympic games to choose from its a wonder anyone can keep up with all the action in Beijing, though thanks to internet technology you can always replay the many videos found on NBC Olympics sites.

Women's volley ball action was a big event (in the US - mostly, young men watched online.  Ah! Chicks in bikinis!), especially yesterday after U.S. volleyball star Kerri Walsh lost her wedding ring during her opening round match when she went up for a block on Sunday against Japan's Mika Saiki and Chiaki Kusuhara. Venue workers combed the sand with metal detectors to find it. Volunteer Song Zhendong dug it up after about 20 minutes - six hours after the morning match.

In other Beijing Olympics high jinks, the recording of the "Star Spangled Banner" abruptly stopped playing at the Water Cube yesterday during the medal ceremony for 400m IM gold medalist Michael Phelps. The American star broke out into a grin and the crowd, unsure what to do, applauded. The glitch occurred with President Bush, wife Laura and daughter Barbara, and his father, former President Bush, in attendance.

Actions such as these are easily recaptured thanks to the advent of online video, something NBC has all but cornered.

But NBC isn't the only online source enjoying some of the 2008 Beijing Olympics web traffic, according to Nielsen Online.

Yahoo Olympics site had a lead over NBC on August 6th with 1.5 million unique visitors, but had fallen to the No. 2 slot by Saturday, though still an impressive 3.3 million unique viewers.

It might surprise you, but AOL Olympics site had only 500,011 unique visits last week Wednesday, but AOL managed to double its online Olympics viewership by Saturday, climbing to just over 1 million unique visitors.

MSN wasn't in the top 10 list; guess with billions in cash in the bank and sweat rolling off of Steve Ballmer's brow (hey, a daily event) after getting a sound 'NO THANK YOU' from Yahoo shareolders Ballmer was just too busy to think MSN should have been in China and dominated with web-side of the Beijing Olympics.  Hey, wait a minute, MSN IS in China, humph, so much for influence, eh, Steve?

ESPN Olympics barely held onto its No. 6 slot in unique Olympics visits between Aug. 6 and 9, climbing from 196,000 unique visits to only 346,000.

Olympics.org, the official site, only reported 156,000 unique visitors by Saturday with nil on August 6th.  Oddly, a search for Olympics.org on Monday revealed no site exists.  Someone should call Nielsen!

Nielsen noted that the Chinese site, www.beijing2008.cn, went from 39,000 unique US viewers on Wednesday to over 780,000 Saturday, but they neglected to say whether it was the English version of the Site or Chinese.  No stats were available in China.

While many news sources are reporting on the vigorous attention the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics are getting, even setting records on the amount of televised coverage, the Internet is getting more action than you can possibly imagine.  You can thank technological advancement for that.