First modern Olympic games 120th anniversary marked with 4 Google doodles

To mark the 120th anniversary of the modern Olympic games, Google has created a series of doodles around four different competitions held at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, Greece in 1896.

Designed by doodler Olivia Huhn, the four similarly styled doodles represent the marathon, shot-put, weight-lifting and gymnastic events. A different Olympic doodle is displayed whenever you refresh your Google homepage. Each of the doodles lead to a search for “first modern olympic games” and includes sharing icons.

According to the Google doodle blog, the games were originally called the I Olympiad, and were centered on nine different sports that included 43 total events.

“Most noteworthy was the marathon — it had the greatest number of international athletes ever,” says Google. The marathon event was won by Spyridon “Spyro” Louis who was the only Greek winner in the athletics division. His win resulted in Spryro being recognized as a national hero for the Olympics host country.

Here are all four Olympic doodles in rotation on Google’s homepage today:

About The Author

Amy Gesenhues is Third Door Media's General Assignment Reporter, covering the latest news and updates for Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs.com, SoftwareCEO.com, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy's articles.

(Some images used under license from Shutterstock.com.)

Let's block ads! (Why?)