The mascots of the Olympic Games are called the Phryges. They are two big red hats inspired by the (Phrygian) cap associated with the French Revolution, on which have been glued big blue eyes, a small mouth, skinny legs and arms too short to clap their hands when they come to encourage the crowd to make noise in the stadiums.
Let’s face it. Mascot design is a delicate art that often results in pretty ugly and mundane things. But in the case of the Olympics, a big layer of symbolic ambition and a desire for originality is added to that, and the result is sometimes downright horrific. Don’t take my word for it. Go and see for yourself the International Olympic Committee’s website, which has the official list of all the Olympic mascots.
We learn that it all started at the Grenoble Winter Games (1968) and that the creator of Schuss, a little red-headed man on skis, had only one night to invent him. And it shows. We had all sorts of animals, from the dachshund (Munich, 1972) to the bald eagle (Los Angeles, 1984), including a raccoon (Lake Placid, 1980) and a trio made up of a platypus, a kingfisher and an anteater (Sydney, 2000). The Koreans didn’t want to force themselves and chose the tiger twice, an orange one (Seoul, 1988) and a white one (Pyeongchang, 2018).
Calgary merchants (1988) wanted a teddy bear because it was the best seller. But since it had already been taken by Moscow (1980), they opted for a polar bear wearing a cowboy hat. Montreal (1976) had preferred a beaver with a stiff tail.
But that’s not the worst. We’ve had all sorts of mythical or conceptual characters: topped with an ice cube head (Turin, 2006), with big feet and almost no head (Athens, 2004), formed only of a big head (Nagano, 1998) or consisting of a big eye at the end of a neck (London, 2012). They all come, over the years, with increasingly long conceptual and symbolic explanations.
The mysteries of human nature or the power of marketing sometimes make the product work despite everything, like the panda astronaut toys that the Chinese were fighting over in Beijing (2022).
As for the big red hats in Paris, I would say that they are mostly adults trying to get a spot next to them to have their picture taken. Their children seem more hesitant, if not downright fearful. We understand them.
This report was financed with the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund-The duty.