The figures represent the best-ever start to a Winter Games for the Pan-European broadcaster which is providing live and delayed coverage of the action at Trentino 2013 across two channels; Eurosport and Eurosport 2, as well as highlights packages and features on its website.

The firm claims that 13.9 million viewers have tuned in to its 31 hours of coverage of the first six days in Trentino compared to just four million for 15 hours of broadcast time at Ezurum 2011 over the same period.

Eurosport signed a six-year deal with the International Federation of University Sports (FISU) in September 2012 which covered the next six Universiades beginning with Kazan 2013 and Trentino 2013, and will cover summer editions at Gwangju 2015 and Taipei 2017, as well as the winter events in Granada 2015 and Almaty 2017.

It is also claimed that over 27 million Europeans tuned into 120 hours of Eurosport coverage from Kazan 2013, making it the largest ever television audience for a Summer Universiade.

"The audience figures achieved by Eurosport and Eurosport 2 for the 2013 Summer and Winter Universiades confirm the success of the multi-sport live programming strategy on our channels," said Eurosport Group's TV content director for broadcast and programmes Arnaud Simon.

"We give viewers live access to up to ten sports on all devices - TV, PC, tablet, mobile, connected TV - and significantly help the event to grow in awareness amongst sports fans."

Kazan 2013 was the first of six Universiades that will have extensive coverage on Eurosport up until 2017 ©AFP/Getty Images