The Single Information Center ‘Sochi 2014’ in Sochi has started
viewing entries for the mascot contest for the Olympic and Paralympic
Games 2014 in Sochi, RIA Novosti reports, citing the center’s head,
Alisa Simonyan.
The mascot contest was officially started on September 1. Organizers
of the contest say that the mascot needs to have typical Russian
features but remain understandable for the majority of people of
various ages, professions and nationalities.
Participants in the contest are allowed to send their work via mail or
e-mail. In October they were permitted to leave their entries at
offices of official Sochi Olympic Games partners such as Aeroflot,
Russian Railways, the offices of Megafon or Sberbank.
On Tuesday the Single Information Center ‘Sochi 2014’ will sort works
according to criteria, for example, ‘people’, ‘animals’, ‘birds’ and
‘fictional characters’. The center has a hotline which can answer
questions concerning the mascot contest.
Originally, the Olympic Games only had an emblem (5 Olympic rings) and
the Olympic Fire. Olympic mascots were approved by the International
Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1972 in Munich. A German badger-dog named
Valdi was the first official mascot. IOC allows organizers of the
games to decide on their mascot. It is usually designed by
professional designers, based on public opinion and marketing. The
executive committee of the IOC needs to approve the mascot, because it
is part of the Olympic symbols and needs a legal status.
