Olympics Hurdles Google Logo Lets You Show Off Your Athleticism -- Kind Of (VIDEO)

You, Too, Can Be An Olympic Athlete With Today's Google Doodle

Have you ever wanted to know what it feels like to compete in the Olympics? Well, now you sort of can!

The newest Google Doodle is an Olympic-themed treat: On the google.com homepage (or permanently on this site), you can race in the 110m hurdles, using your keyboard to control a red-uniformed athlete who must sprint to the end of the track as quickly as he can. After you finish, you can share your time to Google+ or compare it to the times of the actual Olympics hurdles competitors, who will be racing in the coming days.

(NOTE: We can only assume that the distance in the Google Doodle Hurdles is, in fact, 110 meters, given that Google's doodle athlete appears to be male: Men run the 110m hurdles, while women race for 100 meters).

Google had previously celebrated the London Olympics with doodles for the javelin, synchronized swimming, pole vault, shot put, table tennis, field hockey, gymnastics, fencing, diving, archery and the opening ceremony. This is, however, the first Google Olympics Doodle that you can actually interact with and play (though we'd love to see what Google could do with dressage).

The hurdles mini-video game is but the latest in Google's playable doodles: You might remember the working Turing Machine from June, or the Moog synthesizer from May, or -- perhaps most spectacularly -- a full version of Pac-Man from May 2010.

But back to the 110m hurdles: The world record is 12.87 seconds, set by Cuban Olympian Dayron Robles. Can you beat it? You have a whole day of work to try! (Just kidding, boss).

Before You Go

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Google Doodle Slideshow

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