London 2012 slalom canoe paddles into Google Doodle

9 Aug 2012

Internet search giant Google is paying homage to slalom canoeing in its latest London 2012 Olympics-themed Doodle – a stylised Google logo – on its homepage. The interactive Doodle allows users to click the arrow keys on their keyboards to navigate the athlete through the course and over the finish line.

Upon finishing the course, users are shown their time and what medal they would have won, and are given the option to either play the game again, share it on Google’s social network Google+, or go straight to the Google search engine.

Olympic slalom canoe athletes must demonstrate speed, control and precision while paddling the 250-metre course on white-water rapids and guiding the canoe upstream and downstream through gates.

The sport, which has been modelled on slalom skiing, featured in a competition for the first time in Switzerland in 1932, on flat water, London 2012 reports. It became permanent part of the Olympics programme in Barcelona in 1992.

At the London 2012 Olympics, the canoe slalom competition took place at the Lee Valley White Water Centre in Hertfordshire from 29 July-2 August. Sixty-one male athletes and 21 female athletes competed for a shot at a gold medal.

The London 2012 Olympics run until 12 August.

Doodle

Paddling through Google’s Olympic slalom canoe-themed Doodle

Tina Costanza was a journalist and sub-editor at Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com