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Tokyo 2020

All you need to know about the Tokyo Olympics 2020 Mascots

With the Tokyo Olympics less than 50 days away, here is all the information that you need on the official mascots for this year's Games.

Know About Tokyo Olympics 2020 Mascots
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The Tokyo 2020 Mascots (Source: Eugene Hoshiko/AP)

By

Abishek Sadanandam

Published: 5 Jun 2021 1:23 PM GMT

The Olympics is undoubtedly the greatest sporting platform for athletes where they get an opportunity to compete against some of the best in their field from across the globe. The idea of mascots was introduced at the Grenoble Winter Olympics in 1968 but officially made the cut at Munich Summer Olympics in 1972. Mascots are used for marketing the Olympic Games to the audience, especially the younger audience, where they develop an interest in the games by seeing the colourful graphic representation. The mascots also bring in a lot of revenue to finance the Olympic Games through Licensing and Merchandising. The mascots of Tokyo Olympics 2020 were named on 22 July 2018 as Miratoiwa and Someity.

The Tokyo 2020 Mascots

Miraitowa is the official Mascot of the 2020 Summer Olympics, and Someity is the official Mascot of the 2020 Summer Paralympics, both of which are going to be held in Tokyo, Japan, in July and August 2021 respectively.

The Mascots were named by Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee on 22 July 2018, nearly after five months of deciding Mascot's design. The name of the Mascot was selected from 30 names after feedback from the designer and 7000 students who polled. The Tokyo Olympics 2020 mascot is the 26th official mascot for the Games.

Artist behind the Mascots

Taniguchi Ryo is the man who designed this Mascot by winning the competition with votes of 109,041. He is a Fukuoka-based illustrator who hails from a community college in California.

Selection

The mascots were named Miraitowa and Someity on 22 July 2018, but they were selected as mascots on 28 February 2018 by children from more than 16000 Japanese elementary schools from both within and outside Japan.

From late 2017 to early 2018, Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee held a competition to decide the mascots from Summer Olympics and Paralympics. 2,042 applicants applied in this competition which had three screening phases, and only three participants got shortlisted. From a total of 205,755, the Mascots (Miraitowa and Someity), which were named later, got 109,041 votes and emerged as winners.

Design

Miraitowa, the Olympic Mascot, has a blue checkered pattern that is similar to the game's official logo. The checkered pattern actually denotes "both old tradition and new pattern". Miraitowa's name is a combination of two Japanese words Mirai and Towa. "Mirai" means future, and "Towa" means Eternity. The organisers chose this name to promote the future of eternal hope in people across the globe.

Someity, the Paralympic Mascot, has a pink checkered pattern which is similar to the Games Official logo, and it is inspired by Cherry Blossoms. The name "Someity" is derived from someiyoshino, which is a type of cherry blossom, and it refers to the English phrase "So Mighty."



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