London Olympics 2012 mascot unveiled
With the Olympics two years away, the build up for the games is in full swing in London as chairman Sebastian Coe London Olympic Organising Committee (LOCOG) introduced two mascots - Wenlock and Mandeville –to the world on Wednesday. The mascot Wenlock is the Olympic mascot and Mandeville is for the Paralympic Games, the mascots are based on a story written by children's author Michael Morpurgo.
Shaped by suing steel the mascots will make the final girder in the Olympic stadium, according to the story. The mascots have a special place in British sporting history, Much Wenlock is a village in the county of Shropshire where a Dr William Penny Brookes organised an Olympian game in 1850. The legend is that these games led to the birth of the modern Olympic games in 1869.
Stoke Mandeville hospital in England was and is a pioneering hospital for patients suffering paralysing injuries. In 1948 Dr. Ludwig Guttmann organised the first games for people suffering from spinal cord injuries, which led to the Paralympic Games. Grant Hunter is a designer, associated with the agency Iris that developed the mascots. He said that the mascots would travel around the United Kingdom as a build up for the games.
"You will be able to interact with them on Twitter and Facebook straightaway through the LOCOG website but later on their journey, you will be able to go online and customise and create your own kind of mascot," he said during his visit to St. Paul's White chapel Church of England Primary School, which is east of the city of London and close to the Olympic Park.
Coe said that mascots made of steel would be more popular than stuff toys, as children are sure to be attracted towards the mascots.
"Well children were telling us very clearly that they were not looking for fluff. They were looking for something that was rooted in a really good story, and I think the story of the droplets of steel, the girder that goes to make up the last bit of the Olympic stadium and the journey that the two mascots make, Mandeville and Wenlock, between now and 2012 is something that has already excited young people."
He agreed that a good logo, and the London 2012 logo have received a poor response from the public, yet the mascots are there for another purpose.
"We want them enshrined in our merchandising programme, we want it to make a contribution," he said. "We raise all the money to stage the games from the private sector, from our merchandising, our marketing, our sponsorship deals, but primarily, while that is important, I want this to be a hard-working mascot encouraging these guys into doing things they might never have done had the Olympic games not come to their city, to their school, or to their country."
The Olympic mascots have had their share of ups and downs, some have charmed and some revolted. Mascots such as Moscow's Misha the bear for the 1980 Olympics became the darling of the games and earned millions in revenue. Similarly in Barcelona 1992 Cobi the dog captured the rich heritage of his city earning big money and even had his own cartoon series. On the other hand Athena and Phevos were the two doll figures for the 2004 games in Athens, based on a clay doll from Ancient Greece.
Their have been cases when the mascots have confused the public, like the Atlanta Games of 1996 mascot “Izzy”sporting a goggle-eyed, multi-colour eye browed creature wearing huge baseball boots and a permanent leer. The poor mascot had no friends with people refusing to associate it to simply asking, "What is it?" whenever they saw it. The Beijing Games had a special affinity for mascots; the games held in 2008 had no less than five mascots, portraying a panda, a bird, a fish, an antelope and the Olympic flame.
Tags: