Google on Wednesday brought out its first-ever field hockey doodle for the London Olympics 2012. This is Google’s sixth Olympics doodle.
The doodle shows a female hockey player with the Google logo being written on the boundary wall. The “O’’ and “G’’ — the third and fourth letters — of the word Google are hidden behind the player’s back.
Earlier ice hockey had been featured as a Google doodle in the winter Olympics. Ice hockey doodles were featured first in the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics and later in Torino (2006) and Vancouver (2010).
The field hockey events are categorised into two sections — men and female. There are 192 participants in each category.
Currently played on water-based synthetic pitches (commonly called as astro- turf) rather than on grass top, men’s hockey was introduced as an Olympic sport in 1908.
Female hockey was introduced in the Moscow Olympic Games (1980) onwards.
Interestingly, it is being said that the astro-turf at London will have a blue-top instead of the regular green top. Field hockey events are expected to be played between July 29 and August 11.