Sat Feb 26, 2011 4:59pm EST
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin got his wish when a snow leopard, polar bear and hare were chosen as the official mascots of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics on Saturday.
Putin, who was largely responsible for Sochi’s successful bid to host the 2014 Games, said earlier in the day that a snow leopard would be his “symbolic choice.”
The snow leopard received 28 percent of the votes during a live broadcast on Russia’s main Channel One, followed by the polar bear in second place with 18 percent and the hare in third (16 percent).
“There are three mascots for the Olympic Winter Games, representing the three places on the Olympic podium,” Sochi 2014 chief Dmitry Chernyshenko said in a statement.
“All top-three characters will become the Olympic Winter Games mascots. The mascots are the choice of our whole country and will remain in the history of the Olympic movement.”
Television viewers voted for the mascots from a pool of 10 candidates including a Russian bear and Grandfather Frost (Russian Santa Claus) by sending text messages or by calling the studio.
The characters were shortlisted by the organizers from more than 24,000 ideas that were submitted during a nationwide contest.
Earlier on Saturday, Putin told students during his visit to Sochi: “(The snow) leopard is a strong, powerful, fast and beautiful animal.
“Leopard species had been destroyed around here but now they are being regenerated. If the Olympic project, at least in some way, should help the local environment, then it (picking a leopard) would be symbolic.”
(Reporting by Gennady Fyodorov; Editing by Stephen Wood)
http://ca.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idCATRE71P0P620110226
http://espn.go.com/espn/apphoto/photo?photoId=2835748&sportId=3000
Putin’s favourite snow leopard chosen as Winter Olympics mascot – despite public voting for Russian Father ChristmasBy Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:38 PM on 28th February 2011
This cartoon snow leopard, which was backed by Vladimir Putin, has been chosen as a mascot for the 2014 Russian Winter Olympics in Sochi
A row has erupted in Russia after a surfboard-wielding cartoon snow leopard was chosen as an unlikely mascot for the country’s upcoming Winter Olympics – after being backed by Vladimir Putin.
Three mascots – a cute-looking snow leopard, polar bear and hare – were chosen to represent the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi by popular vote in a television show late on Saturday.
But now allegations of high-level political meddling, as well as plagiarism, have marred the vote.
Eyebrows were first raised when the initial favourite to win the most votes – a portrayal of Russian Father Christmas Ded Moroz – was rather undemocratically ditched from the competition by the organisers.
Then it just so happened that the mascot which the Russian Prime Minister had declared his favourite – the ‘strong, fast and beautiful’ snow leopard – polled easily the most votes.
Prominent Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin told Moscow Echo radio that it was possible that rigging of the telephone system had been used to engineer the desired result.
The initial favourite to win the most votes – a portrayal of Russian Father Christmas Ded Moroz – was ditched from the competition by the organisers, and a hare and a polar bear were chosen alongside the snow leopard as mascots
‘Just after Vladimir Putin showed his sympathy for the leopard, its votes climbed sharply,’ he said.
The snow leopard, who moves around on a snowboard, was nowhere to be seen in the initial ratings, which were led by Ded Moroz.
‘It’s hard to imagine a more ridiculous mascot. The snowboarding leopard was practically chosen from on high and is completely unjustified. There is nothing Russian about it,’ fumed blogger Titos on liberal web newspaper gazeta.ru.
Russian Prime Minister Putin looking at a leopard as he visits the National Park in Sochi in 2009
Adding to the controversy, the man who designed the bear mascot for the 1980 Moscow Olympics complained that the Sochi bear was a blatant copy of his own work.
‘This polar bear, everything is taken from mine – the eyes, nose, mouth, smile. I don’t like being robbed,’ Viktor Chizhikov told Moscow Echo.
‘Not one of the mascots has the slightest relation to the assigned task,’ he added.
The grinning polar bear – who wears a green scarf – also annoyed the speaker of Russia’s upper house Sergei Mironov, who said it resembled too closely the bear symbol of ruling party United Russia.
‘This is absolutely wrong,’ said Mironov, who heads the Just Russia opposition party.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361466/Vladimir-Putins-favourite-snow-leopard-chosen-Russian-Winter-Olympic-mascot.html#ixzz1FHNiUxeD
Putin support helps make Snow Leopard one of three mascots for Sochi Olympics
AFP Photo / The Sochi 2014 Organizing Comittee / Getty Images
The Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee shows an illustration of a leopard which was announced to be one of the official mascot winners from a list of 10 short-listed entries.
Elspeth Lodge February 28, 2011 – 2:30 pm
A snow leopard, polar bear and hare were chosen as official mascots of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics on Saturday after an online vote open to Russians.
The snow leopard got a prominent boost when Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin said it was his preference. PM Putin is largely responsible for helping Sochi win the 2014 Winter Olympics bid, and he said early on Saturday, before the vote, that the leopard would be his “symbolic choice.”
Putin told students during his visit to Sochi: “(The snow) leopard is a strong, powerful, fast and beautiful animal. Leopard species had been destroyed around here but now they are being regenerated. If the Olympic project, at least in some way, should help the local environment, then it (picking a leopard) would be symbolic.”
Characters were shortlisted from over 24, 000 ideas submitted to the contest, but suspicions of foul play began to arise when a front runner in the competition, Russian Father Christmas Ded Moroz, was suddenly dropped from the running with no explanation.
A Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin told Moscow Echo radio that the telephone system could have been rigged to engineer results, reports Breitbart. He also said the the leopard “somewhat implausibly” moved around in the ratings.
The snow leopard received 28% of the votes during a live broadcast on Russia’s main Channel One, followed by the polar bear in second place with 18% and the hare in third (16%).
“There are three mascots for the Olympic Winter Games, representing the three places on the Olympic podium,” Sochi 2014 chief Dmitry Chernyshenko said in a statement.
“All top-three characters will become the Olympic Winter Games mascots. The mascots are the choice of our whole country and will remain in the history of the Olympic movement.”
In addition, the Paralympic winter games mascots of 2014, the Ray of Light and the Snowflake, were chosen by Paralympic champions: the Paralympic Games champion and the general secretary of Russian Paralympic committee Mikhail Terentiev, the Paralympic champion and the Sochi 2014 Ambassador Olesya Vladykina, and Paralympic sportsmen Alexander Alyabyev, Vladimir Kiselyov, Margarita Koptilova, Xenia Ovsyannikova and Igor Pustovit, reports Sochi.ru.
“It’s the great honor for us to choose the symbol of the first Paralympic Games in history of our country. The Games will help to deliver positive changes to the lives of millions of people with a disability. It is very important to us that the millions of people living with a disability can find hope and understand that they can achieve incredible goals,” says Mikhail Terentiev. “The story of our fantastic mascots is that they arrived from a far-out planet and that they have infinite potential. It is a highly powerful and emotional image that, despite the difference in their make-up, the Ray of Light and the Snowflake are so united. I’m sure our two mascots will provide further inspiration to our future Paralympic champions and will help to develop Paralympic sports in Russia.”
The rights to the five 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic cartoon mascots have been passed to the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee. Those who appeared in the final of the contest have received certificates for attending the opening ceremonies of the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in 2014, reports Sochi.ru, and they have been awarded with commemorative medals and gifts from the Sochi 2014 Partner Megaphone.
“The finalists visited the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee offices before the vote and met with Dmitry Chernyshenko. The authors have received the encyclopedia “History of the Olympic Games: from Athens to China” containing a written message from the President of the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee,” reports Sochi.ru.
Who designed the mascots?
• Oleg Serdechniy, 1957, Sochi (the White bear),
• Vadim Pak, 1977, Nakhodka (the Leopard),
• Silviya Petrova, 1994, the Chuvash republic state, Yankovsky region, New Buyanovo village (the Hare)
• Natalia Balashova, 1963, Moscow (the Ray of Light),
• Anna Zhilinsky, 2002, St.-Petersburg (the Snowflake).
With files from Thomson Reuters
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/02/28/putin-support-helps-make-snow-leopard-one-of-three-mascots-for-sochi-olympics/
Tuesday, 1st March 2011
World Briefs
Russian mascot poll flawed
Russia’s much criticised choice of three fluffy mammals as its mascots for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games took a new twist yesterday when President Dmitry Medvedev admitted their election was flawed.
Russians at the weekend selected a snow leopard, a hare and a polar bear as the official mascots for the Sochi Games in a televised poll that aimed to present the three creatures as the people’s choice.
But this being Russia, even this most innocent sounding of ballots proved controversial with the original favourite Ded Moroz – the Russian Father Christmas – rather brutally slung out of the competition by the organisers.
Then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin let slip that he wanted the snow leopard to win, leading to a surge of votes for the spotted predator and allegations of dirty tricks. (AFP)
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110301/world-news/world-briefs
Is Russia’s 2014 Olympic Mascot a Copycat of the 1980 Logo?
By: Nick Carbone (23 hours ago)
Misha (left), the 1980 Olympics mascot, is seen next to the polar bear chosen as the mascot for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics
Fast Company (left) / Sochi2104 (right)
This weekend, the four mascots for the 2014 Sochi (Russia) Winter Olympics were revealed. But there seems to be a curious air of familiarity surrounding one of them.
The Russian public voted Saturday night for their three favorite mascots via text and phone after a televised unveiling. The top choices – a cuddly rabbit, a sporty snow leopard, and a pudgy polar bear – were chosen from a pool of nine potential mascots. But perhaps you’ve seen the polar bear before? Is it just fond memories, or is the fan-favorite bear mascot a blatant rip-off of the one used in the 1980 Olympic mascot?
(More on TIME.com: See photos of loony Olympic mascots over the years)
Misha the bear was the mascot for the 1980 Summer Olympics held, of all places, in Moscow. The brown bear wore a belt featuring the Olympic rings logo – and bears quite a resemblance to the recently unveiled 2014 mascot. “This polar bear, everything is taken from mine, the eyes, nose, mouth, smile. I don’t like being robbed,” Misha’s creator Viktor Chizhikov told a Russian radio station.
Perhaps during this contest Russians felt a subconscious affinity for Misha’s twin. But all this copycat commotion leaves us wondering: where’s the line between flattery and forgery?
(More on TIME.com: See how to make an Olympic torch cocktail)
And it seems no Olympic representation can catch a break this week. London’s 2012 logo is facing heat from Iran’s Olympic delegation, who contends the design resembles the word “Zion,” a biblical term often used as a reference to Jerusalem in Israel. The AP reports Iran is threatening to boycott the games because of the logo disagreement.
But in the Olympic spirit of camaraderie and cooperation, let’s save the sparks for the playing field, okay?
Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/02/28/is-russias-2014-olympic-mascot-a-copycat-of-the-1980-logo/#ixzz1FNRYsBDu
Updated: March 2, 2011, 1:48 PM ET
Mascot picked for Sochi Olympics
By Colin Whyte
The mascots for Sochi 2014’s Winter Olympics were unveiled Saturday and, among the three winners, is a snowboarding snow leopard. With a huge, benevolent grin on his face and his snowboard always nearby, the leopard won 28-precent of the votes in an online poll open to all Russians and broadcast live on TV’s “Talismaniya Sochi 2014 – The Final” on Channel One.
The other two main Sochi 2014 mascot winners are a polar bear and a hare. The use of three mascots is meant to mirror the places on an Olympic medal podium. Mascots were chosen from over 24,000 ideas submitted.
Just as snowboarding in the Olympics has always been steeped in controversy, the choice of the snowboarding leopard is now a loaded topic — even if snowboarding has little to do with it. Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin named the leopard as his mascot preference, telling students on his visit to Sochi: “(The snow) leopard is a strong, powerful, fast and beautiful animal. Leopard species had been destroyed around here but now they are being regenerated. If the Olympic project, at least in some way, should help the local environment, then it (picking a leopard) would be symbolic.”
Putin’s support for the snow leopard is now being questioned because the leopard was not a fan favorite in early voting. Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin, on Moscow Echo radio, said: “Just after Vladmir Putin showed his sympathy for the leopard, its votes climbed sharply… ”
The leopard will join fellow mascots the Hare and Polar Bear in Sochi. Blogger”titos” on the gazeta.ru web site takes things further: “It’s hard to imagine a more ridiculous mascot. The snowboarding leopard was practically chosen from on high and is completely unjustified. There is nothing Russian about it.”
(Meanwhile, the happy polar bear is under fire for being both a rip-off of the 1980 Moscow Olympics bear and/or a masked reference to the bear symbol of Russia’s dominant United Russia party.)
The snow leopard mascot himself is always seen standing erect, like a human or meerkat. According to his official backstory (see a funny, user-translated YouTube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5tPx_1X1K8), he is not only a devoted snowboarder but also, ” a rescuer and mountain-climber who lives in the uppermost branches of a huge tree, on the highest peak of the snowy mountains in the Caucasus. He is always prepared to help those in need, and on a number of occasions has rescued nearby villages from mighty avalanches.” Like his famous Internet countryman, Ill Mitch, a skateboarding rapper-boxer, Snow Leopard also loves to dance.
While the shredding snow leopard will surely cash in on the popularity of the Macintosh computer operating system of the same name, it is important to recognize the role of snowboarding’s popularity as an Olympic sport here: In 1998, at the Nagano Games, snowboarding was a bit of an oddity, most memorable for racer Ross Rebagliati’s marijuana charge. By 2002 in Salt Lake City nearly 32-percent of the US population (92 million people) watched the US Men’s team’s medal sweep of the halfpipe and a US woman win gold. It’s generally accepted that snowboarding was rushed to the Olympic table partly to help TV ratings among younger viewers and it worked, with NBC reporting a 23-percent bump in the 18-34 demographic for ’02. At Vancouver 2010, snowboarding’s success continued with snowboarding a focal point of the Opening Ceremony and eventual gold medalist Shaun White deemed the most recognizable athlete at the Winter Olympics.
While we’re sure Snow Leopard will be a hit with the kids, we just wonder how he is going to compete in the halfpipe with that much sidecut…
http://sports.espn.go.com/action/snowboarding/news/story?id=6172182
Cuddly Controversy: Sochi 2014 Olympic Mascot Choices Mired in Political Debate
By: Samantha Rollins
Vladimir Putin loves (big) cats. In fact, he loves them so much that he’s accused of rigging a popular vote in order to get a snow leopard on the ballot.
As the Russians gear up for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, controversy has been mounting over a popular vote that decided on the winter games’ three mascots: a snowboarding snow leopard, a hare and a polar bear.
(More on TIME.com: See photos of loony Olympic mascots over the years)
The country solicited mascot ideas and received over 24,000, which were narrowed down and chosen by popular vote (Russians could text votes or submit them online). But the fishy part was this: before the winners were announced, the frontrunner appeared to be Grandfather Frost, the Russian version of Santa Claus. However, shortly after Prime Minister Putin put in his endorsement for the snow leopard, which he said would be the “symbolic choice” for Sochi, Grandfather Frost was mysteriously pulled from the race and replaced by a snowboarding snow leopard.
“It’s hard to imagine a more ridiculous mascot. The snowboarding leopard was practically chosen from on high and is completely unjustified. There is nothing Russian about it,” said blogger Titos on the gazeta.ru website.
But the snow leopard wasn’t the only Sochi mascot in the news. Between complaints that the polar bear mascot is a veiled reference to the country’s dominant party, United Russia, and allegations that it’s a rip-off of the 1980 Moscow Games’ teddy bear mascot, the controversy has been rather beastly.
Newsfeed just hopes that everyone can cuddle and make up.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/05/cuddly-controversy-sochi-2014-olympic-mascot-choices-mired-in-political-debate/
2014 Olympic Mascot: Snowboarding Snow Leopard the Official Mascot
By Ryan Rudnansky (Featured Columnist) on March 5, 2011 7,506
At the end of it all, the snowboarding snow leopard was selected as the top official mascot of Sochi 2014’s Winter Olympic Games, garnering 28 percent of votes over 24,000 ideas submitted online in Russia.
The snow leopard, which joins a polar bear and a hare as the three mascots symbolizing the three places on an Olympic podium, is a favorite of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Via ESPN:
“(The snow) leopard is a strong, powerful, fast and beautiful animal. Leopard species had been destroyed around here but now they are being regenerated. If the Olympic project, at least in some way, should help the local environment, then it (picking a leopard) would be symbolic.”
Of course, Putin was controversial even in the midst of a selected mascot.
Some people believed there was some conspiracy theory, as the leopard wasn’t one of the top vote-getters before Putin expressed his favoritism over the animal.
Reportedly votes jumped after his declaration, and some Web sites are calling it “a ridiculous mascot” with “nothing Russian about it.”
As for me, I kind of like it.
I mean, it’s a snowboarding leopard, what can be cooler than that?
Also, he’s not only a passionate snowboarder, he is “a rescuer and mountain-climber who lives in the uppermost branches of a huge tree, on the highest peak of the snowy mountains in the Caucasus. He is always prepared to help those in need, and on a number of occasions has rescued nearby villages from mighty avalanches.”
Wow! What a cool snow leopard!
I’d be ecstatic if that little guy was representing my country.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/627375-wes-leonard-jamarcus-russell-miami-heat-and-saturdays-late-sports-buzz/entry/50879-2014-olympic-mascot-snowboarding-snow-leopard-the-official-mascot