Feature: Female tennis star has best individual website - October 2006  

According to new ArkSports research, tennis player Justine Henin-Hardenne is ranked number one in an audit of the official websites of the 100 leading sports individuals globally. Henin-Hardenne beat both fellow tennis player Andy Roddick and golfing great Tiger Woods into joint second place for best individual website.

The websites were ranked by ArkSports following the scoring of certain criteria such as Content, Personality Input Factor (PIF), Style and Commercial elements.

Sportspeople’s websites were studied from 75 sports globally - from soccer through to chess and powerboating.

Although many major sports stars have lots of unofficial websites, several top sports individuals such as Sachin Tendulkar, Asafa Powell, Annika Sorenstam and Thierry Henry surprisingly do not have official websites.

As well as determining which sports stars had the best websites, the research also concluded that:

· Sportspeople who compete in individual sports have better websites than those who compete in team sports.
· Tennis players’ websites are the best websites followed by individuals who participate in Motor Sport and Basketball.
· USA supplies the top nationality in terms of best individual websites.
· Tiger Woods is deemed to have the best overall content.
· Alonso and Roddick rank top for commercial activities (even though all profits from Roddick's commercial activities go to charity)
· The most stylish site belongs to Jeremy Bloom (Freestyle skiing and American Football).
· Top PIF was awarded to Spanish Basketball Player Pau Gasol.

Top Ten Sports Websites – Individuals

Source: ArkSports

Well-known sports personalities who did not make the top 10 include:

· Ronaldinho, 17th (top footballer Michael Ballack 15th)
· Phil Mickelson, 19th (nobody can beat Tiger Woods, even on the web!)
· Barry Bonds, 26th
· Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor, 28th
· Andrew Flintoff, 39th
· Michael Schumacher, 42nd
· Floyd Landis, 53rd
· Michael Phelps, 63rd

The full findings (in a c50 page PDF report) will shortly be made available free of charge to members of the Sport and Technology Executive Club (www.sportandtechnologyexecutiveclub.com), or can be purchased from ArkSports for £100 plus VAT. Contact lboyle@arksports.com for further details and/or an order form.

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