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My mission is to spread joy throughout the world and celebrate the friendship that flourishes between people from all over the world at this super sports event. From my home, we can see the whole city and plan animal adventures. I live in a tree-house, in the Tijuca Forest, which has become a meeting place for the gang. My best friend of all is the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games mascot. I love meeting people from all over the world.
![london olympic mascot names london olympic mascot names](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2D2BWGN/the-2012-olympic-mascot-wenlock-l-and-paralympic-mascot-mandeville-pose-for-photographers-in-the-playground-at-st-pauls-primary-school-in-london-may-19-2010-the-mascots-posed-for-the-cameras-on-the-day-of-their-official-launch-reuterssuzanne-plunkett-britain-tags-sport-olympics-2D2BWGN.jpg)
And I always hang out around the city! My favorite pastime is making new friends, that’s why I’m always connected. I can also imitate the voice of any animal – I’m super-communicative! And since I’m a mixture of Brazilian animals, I can do all the best things they can do: I can run faster, jump higher and be stronger. I can stretch and stretch and stretch myself, as much as I want. I was born out of the explosion of joy that happened when they announced that Rio would host the Olympic Games on 2 October 2009.Īlthough I was born on 2 October 2009, my age is not counted like yours, so nobody knows exactly what it is.īut I live my life playing, jumping, running and smiling, just like all the kids. "It hasn't got a face and I think it's funny," she told a reporter, adding with a giggle that Wenlock looked "fat."Īlessia Goldthorpe, 5, rattled off facts about Wenlock and Mandeville to her father in the same park before declaring that she likes Wenlock.I am Vinicius, the official 2016 Olympic Games mascot, a mixture of all the Brazilian animals. Six-year-old Nimaran Sandhu's face lit up when she saw a Wenlock statue. On a recent afternoon, some tourists gawked at the life-size statues while others hung off them for photos. Organizers would not provide a breakdown of sales so far, but said Wenlock and Mandeville items make up around 20 percent of the total London 2012 licensed merchandise, which is expected to generate more than 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) worth of sales.ĭespite the ever-present mockery, visitors to the mascots' official website have created more than 105,500 personalized avatars, and mascot statues in London seem to be inspiring more curiosity than criticism. It said in an email that soft toys of Wenlock and Mandeville were a "consistent best seller." Wenlock figurines in police gear have come under fire from dozens of online commenters decrying the "fascist playthings" and "totalitarian toys."Īctor Ewan McGregor tweeted his disappointment Friday after seeing plastic mascot statutes in London's Regents Park: "With this country's artistic heritage this one eyed joke made me sad."ĭespite the vocal backlash, mascots are proving to be an important part of the London 2012 product range, according to the city's Olympic organizing committee. Their watchful eyes -described in many forums as toy versions of London's omnipresent CCTV lenses - seem to have caused the most discomfort, drawing Orwellian comparisons and references to surveillance states. Since they were selected as the official mascots back in 2009, detractors have had a field day with the pair, questioning how faceless monsters fashioned out of "drops of steel" - the duo's creation story - won out over 100 other designs by artists and agencies. "We don't see a smiling face, it's not a friendly eye.
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"It's not so friendly," said Jenny Zhang, looking at a Wenlock while in London from China for business. Olympic mascots over the years have raised the question: What were they thinking? (Turin's humanized snowball and ice cube in 2006, anyone?) But even Sydney's spiky echidna managed to look cute and cuddly, while a barrage of critics say Wenlock and Mandeville are anything but. They peer out of official London Olympics snow globes, adorn backpacks and towels, decorate magnets and mugs. Wenlock's head is round, while Mandeville has ridges atop his noggin. Both of their heads have "taxi light" in the middle, a tribute to London's famous black cabs. They have legs, but no feet arms bearing "friendship bands" in the colors of the Olympic rings, but no fingers. In place of a face, each have one large, staring eye - a camera, according to Olympic organizers, to let them "record everything." Wenlock - named after an English town in Shropshire that helped inspire the modern Olympic games - and Mandeville, whose name pays tribute to the hospital considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Games - look more like surveillance robots than humans or animals. Bloggers and other commentators, however, have been skewering the duo for scaring children and projecting a creepy surveillance-state image of the Olympic games.