Bizarre mascots unveiled for 2016 Olympics
What am I? Unless you are looking at things from a philosophical point of view, this is normally a relatively straight-forward question. However, this is not the case for the newly unveiled 2016 Olympic and Paralympic mascots.
Following in the tradition of bizarre mascots for the Games, Rio’s offerings have been inspired by the animals and plants of Brazil.
The Olympic mascot combines “the agility of cats, the sway of monkeys and the grace of birds” while the Paralympic version is a “fusion of plants found in Brazilian forests“.
In reality riders can look forward to being cheered on by a yellow cat and a blue shrub.
“The Rio 2016 mascots represent the diversity of our culture, of our people,” said Beth Lula, Rio 2016 brand director. “They represent our joy, our way of being. Both of them are magical creatures with super powers and relate naturally with the young audience, who we want to engage with our event so much.”
Despite being born the night that Rio was announced as the winning city to host the games in 2009 neither of the pair currently have names. Instead a poll has been opened to that the public can vote for their favourite name. Unfortunately Cat and Shrub are not an option but Oba and Eba, Tiba Tuque and Esquindim, and Vinicius and Tom are all available.
The winning names will be revealed on the 14 December.
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This new duo will be following the footsteps of numerous other nonsensical creations from past Olympic games.
Who can forget Wenlock and Mandeville, the cyclopes that led Team GB to so many successes in London. Or Athena and Phevos from Athens who were meant to be two modern children resembling Greek gods but unfortunately like a cross between chips and a duck.
The new kids on the block even invited some of their predecessors to Brazil to show them the sites and get some handy tips on being an Olympic mascot.
For more information and to vote visit www.rio2016.com/mascots/#!home
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Sophia Heath joined Horse & Hound in July 2013 having previously worked for the Daily Telegraph's Olympics website, CNN International and Omnisport. A Durham graduate with a Masters in journalism from City University, Sophia has evented, showjumped and hunted. Sophia left Horse & Hound in early 2015 to join an international boating website.