Olympic 2012 Official Mascot

Wenlock the official Olympic mascot and Mandeville the official Paralympics mascot were recently revealed at St Pauls Whitechapel Church of England Primary School in east London and they came as a bit of a surprise.
 

Before the mascots were revealed London 2012 Chairman Lord Coe told the BBC that: ‘We want it to be fun, we want it to try and engage and reconnect young people to sport and that should be fun, teach them to play sport and anchor it in our extraordinary Olympic and Paralympic history.'
 

Mascot Wenlock takes its unusual name from the town of Much Wenlock that first hosted the ‘Wenlock Olympian Games’ in the 1850s. Mandeville on the other hand is named after the location of the first Paralympic games that were founded after World War II and held to coincide with the 1948 Olympics. Not only are their names significant but they also have some cultural significance. Mandville is capped with the yellow light from a London taxi and Wenlock wears Olympic rings for bracelets.
 

Acclaimed author Michael Morpurgo has created back stories for our lovable new mascots. The story called Out of a Rainbow tells how Mandeville and Wenlock were formed by a loving grandfather from the last few drops of steel left over from the girders made for the Olympic stadium. They were then touched by a rainbow and came to life.
 

The new and rather unusual looking mascots have so far had an amused backlash being referred to as characters from the beloved kids film Monsters Inc and as aliens and I can understand why. But whatever their back story they are definitely a bigger success than the Olympic 2012 logo created back in 2007 which was widely mocked and incredibly expensive.
 

If children like the look of aliens or strange monsters which I’m pretty sure they do then they are sure to be a successful addition to the Olympic make up.