A History of Olympic & Paralympic Mascots
For a while there were rumours that the mascot of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games would be the popular anime character from the Dragon Ball series Goku. Whether this rumour had any actual validity to it or was simply a concoction of tumbler remains to be seen. Instead two super hero inspired mascots, Miraitowa for the Olympic Games and Someity for the Paralympic Games were selected. They are just two of a long lineage of Olympic & Paralympic Games mascots.
History Of Mascots At The Olympic & Paralympic Games
Out of fifty-one Olympic games, there have been twenty-six to feature a mascot of some type. The first mascot to ever be featured at a games, acting as a symbol on merchandise was at the 1968 Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France. It featured a cartoon character of a man on some skis and was created by Aline Lafargue. The mascots name was Schuss and was designed in only a single night. He was not actually called a mascot during the games, but rather referred to as a character. He is not recognized as an official mascot of the 1968 games, but is the original.
The first official mascot of the games was Waldi the Dachshund (Weiner Dog), which was featured at the 1972 Munich Games. It was designed by Elena Winschermann, who chose the Dachshund because of it’s popularity in Bavaria. Waldi’s concept first took shape three years prior to the games at the 1969 Munich Games Organising Committee’s Christmas party, where attendees were given crayons and asked to create their idea for a mascot. There is a short video put together by The Olympic Museum Youtube page, featuring a interview of the designer herself.
Tokyo 2020 will be the fourth Olympic Games hosted by the nation of Japan. The first two games, the 1964 Tokyo Summer Games and the 1972 Sapporo Winter Games didn’t feature a mascot. At the time it wasn’t common practice among the Organizing committee.
Over twenty years later, when the Olympics made its way back to Japan, in the form of the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, they would this time have not one mascot but four: Sukki, Nokki, Lekki and Tsukki. The design was not made by a Japanese artist or company, rather it was a chosen submission created by Landor Associates, an American based business founded by a German immigrant.
The Paralympics didn’t see their very own mascots materialize until 1980. At the time the games were still referred to as Olympics for the Disabled, and had not yet started officially being branded the Paralympics. These games were held in Arnhem, Netherlands, with the opening ceremonies commencing June 21st. The games featured two squirrels in athletic jerseys. They were designed by Necky Oprinsen from St. Michelsgestel, who submitted their design to a competition hosted by Dutch broadcaster AVRO. They were a lead broadcaster in the games and the submission was ultimately used to sell memorabilia at the games.
We’ve seen the maturation of the Olympic and Paralympic mascots over the past fifty years. Starting with simple designs created on a whim to full blown votes, cast by thousands of individuals. From something of an afterthought, to images that featured seemingly everywhere at the games.
Tokyo 2020 Mascot Selection Process
The Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee began its mission to select their own mascots for the upcoming Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2017. This was done so by having over 200,000 children across 16, 000 schools cast their votes on a variety of mascot options. There were three pairs that were voted upon. Pair A created by Ryo Taniguichi won with a total of roughly 110, 000 of the votes. Pair B created by Kana Yano received the second most with 65, 000 and Pair C designed by Sanae Akimoto came in third with 35, 000.
The results of the vote were announced on February 28th 2018, however at the time the names were still undecided for the winning pair. A second vote was held, this time not to the public, and on July 22nd 2018 the names Miraitowa and Someity were announced. Miraitowas is a combination of two Japanese words: Mirai, meaning future & towa meaning eternity. Someity is named after the popular cherry blossom type Someiyoshino, and also sounds like “so mighty” in English. According to their back story they live in a digital world and exemplify high characteristics, like those of Olympians. In almost every Tokyo 2020 event leading up to the actual opening ceremonies, you can expect Miraitowa and Someity to not be far.
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