China’s mourning of Kobe Bryant and Maradona dominate Baidu 2020 searches
- Chinese internet giant Baidu reveals top searches of 2020 with World Cup winner and NBA great only sports figures to feature
- Los Angeles Lakers legend’s demise also made it onto Google’s global list of most popular searches
The deaths of Kobe Bryant and Diego Maradona were the only sport-related searches to make any of Chinese search engine Baidu’s wrap of 2020’s trending topics.
Baidu published the figures on their homepage last week, with Bryant’s death coming in at No 10 on the top 10 most searched terms of the year in China.
Bryant died with eight others, including his daughter Giana, in a January helicopter crash. His death was felt around the world and especially in China, where the Los Angeles Lakers star was the most popular player in the country even after he retired from playing.
Searches for Bryant’s death made the top 10 along with “the pandemic” in first place, face mask in third, China’s Mars exploration in fourth and US-China relations in seventh.
Chinese fans mourn Kobe Bryant’s death on social media
Baidu also published the list of most searched public deaths – “Tears of the Year” – where Bryant again featured. He came in third behind “national mourning” and “anti-pandemic hero”.