Friday, July 19, 2013

Russian Mascot Election!

Sochi, Russia



The 2014 Winter Olympics will be held in Sochi, Russia which is a city on the Black Sea near the Georgia border.The games will be the first winter games to feature medals competitions in "Slopestyle" snowboard and skiing as well as snowboard parallel slalom.




Parallel Snowboard Slalom



Of course the real competitions have already been held: namely the insane International competition to host the Olympics (which came down to a choice between Sochi, Salzburg, and Pyeongchang) and, more importantly, the competition to choose the official Olympic mascots.You will no doubt recall that the 2012 summer Olympics mascots were "", two cyclopean alien robot monsters.



Wenlock and Mandeville



In an attempt to end up with less appalling mascots, Russia turned to the time honored Russian solution of democracy (?).Wow! The world really is changing.A list of vetted candidates was drawn up and submitted to the public for consideration.Some of the shortlisted design ideas included Matryoshka dolls, Dolphins, Bullfinches, snow leopards, hares, bears, a tiny anthropomorphized sun, and Ded Moroz (the Russian "Father Frost" who acts as Santa).



The shortlist of 2014 Olympic mascot candidates



Zoich, the counter culture mascot of the 2014 Olympics



Zoich, the anti-establishment furry crowned toad (who was modeled after Futurama's hypnotoad) was quietly omitted from the final list of candidates as was Ded Moroz, when it was discovered that, if he won, he would become the intellectual property of the International Olympic Committee.



Sorry Ded, you already belong to the children of Russia



A telephone voting competition was held between the final mascot candidates and the three winners (the snow leopard, hare, and bear) became the official Olympic mascots.Unfortunately the election was tainted with scandal when Russia's elected leader and perennial strongman, Vladimir Putin announced that his favorite candidate was the snow leopard.Subsequent to this proclamation, an immense number of phonecalls were immediately tallied for the snow leopard, which has led to charges of vote-rigging (so maybe the world hasn't changed so much after all).



The winners



The designer of the 1980 Moscow Games mascot Misha (a bear which nobody saw because of the U.S. boycott) has accused the designer of the Sochi bear mascot of plagiarizing his bear expression.Certain political groups have also darkly hinted that the bear was chosen because it resembles the mascot of the United Russia political party (which is the dominant force in Russian politics).



The Sochi 2014 mascot bear, Misha, the 1980 mascot bear, and the United Russia bear



So it seems only the snow hare and the Paralympic mascots (a snowflake girl and fireboy) are untainted by controversy.I dislike admitting it, but to my eye, Putin was right and the snow leopard, although not native to Sochi, is the most compelling figure.They are all pretty cute, so maybe this whole democracy thing actually works (despite the ghastly results we have been getting lately in America).



Better than Congress by a lot!
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