Google Doodles of Sydney, Athens and Beijing Olympics

Following up on the promise made in ‘All the Google Doodles of London Olympics 2012’ (on 12 Aug), here is the compilation of the past Google Doodles of the Sydney Olympic Games of 2000, the Athens Games of 2004 and the Beijing Olympics of 2008.  Notice how the Doodles have become slicker, brighter and more attractive over the years.

Looking back, the Sydney Olympics’ doodles look almost drab and rudimentary.  Even the naughtiness we expect from the occasional doodle is missing except in the Weightlifting doodle of 22 Sep 2000, with a sheepish Kangaroo.



The Athens Olympics’ doodles are an absolute charm.  Almost every doodle has a mischievous content, from the Logo being cut/broken in Fencing and Taekwondo to lifting the Swimming Gold with the trident.  The artwork too is fabulous.



The Beijing doodles are a class in themselves.  The artwork is simple but for the first time (in Olympic Doodles), the Google Logo itself is ‘mangled’ in almost all the doodles.  In a couple of them, it is an exercise to identify the letters formed by the cartoons.  We also see a blatant display of the ‘cultural’ sensitivity by Google for the first time.  They released two Doodles for the closing ceremony, one with all the (12) animals of the  Shēngxiào or Chinese zodiac and one without the ‘gou’ and ‘zhu’ (Dog and Pig) for the Arab world.



So as promised - a week late - are the Doodles.  In case you’re interested in the original doodles themselves, I’ve uploaded them into my Google Site.   Clicking on the following links will download the doodle collection (including above images & a Paint.NET file of them):

• Sydney 2000 (~1 MB)
• Athens 2004 (~1.3 MB)
• Beijing 2008 (~1.3 MB)

The London 2012 links are of course in the earlier post.

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