On September 1, 2010 the Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee opened the
Russian national competition to design a Masco, for the Sochi Games. The
competition remained open for three months, during which time anyone
wishing to get involved could send in their own mascot suggestion (or
even several suggestions), take a look at other participants’
suggestions and give their evaluation of others’ sketched designs.
By the time the competition stopped accepting entries (on December 5,
2010), over 24,000 sketches had been sent in to the Sochi 2014
Organizing Committee. Entries could be sent in either via the Internet
or by post. More than a million people followed the competition online,
and each week we received over a thousand new entries.
The Sochi 2014 Partners were all fully supportive of the competition,
helping to communicate news about it to the public. Application forms
were made available in all of BoscoSPORT’s branches, all of Rosneft’s
automobile repair centres, all of Volkswagen Group Rus’s showrooms and
in every single MegaFon sales office. The Ingosstrakh insurance company
mobilized 323 of its company offices in Russian to disseminate
information about the mascot competition, and distributed around 30,000
application forms. Russian Railways gave all passengers on board its
Sapsan trains the chance to draw a sketch of their proposed mascot while
in transit. Meanwhile, Aeroflot arranged for its flight attendants to
hand out application forms to passengers flying between Moscow and
Sochi. Sberbank of Russia played an active role in keeping the public
informed about the competition, through its corporate literature. And
MegaFon even lent its support to a series of television programs
entitled “The Star Mascot”, broadcast on the MuzTV channel.
People from all over the country took part in the mascot ideas
competition. All of Russia’s regions, from Kaliningrad to Khabarovsk,
participated in it. The top three regions, in terms of participation,
were: The Central, North-Western and Privolzhsky Federal Regions. The
opinions of Russian citizens living abroad were also taken into
consideration. There was no age limit to participation in the
competition.
The results of the first round of the poll to select mascots for the
Olympic and Paralympic Games were announced by an expert judging panel,
which boasted famous names from the fields of culture, education, sport,
business and politics. The competition’s judging panel was headed by
Director General of the Channel One Russia, Konstantin Ernst.
The judging panel’s work
The work of the expert judging panel was carried out in several
stages. To begin with, the judges each spent some time familiarizing
themselves with the gallery of mascot designs, and decided on a personal
shortlist of those ideas which, in their opinion, were capable of
representing the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Sochi in the eyes of
the rest of the world.
The shortlists that had been compiled at the end of this stage were
discussed by the expert judging panel during a general meeting. At the
meeting, the judges selected 10 sets of mascot suggestions for the Sochi
2014 Olympic Games and 3 sets of mascot suggestions for the Sochi 2014
Paralympic Games which, in their opinion, were worthy of inclusion in
the final shortlist.
In the period between December 2010 and February 2011, a team of
artists and animators will create cartoon images of the shortlisted
suggestions, for TV. In early February the mascot candidates for the
Sochi Games will be presented to the nation. The winning mascot will be
announced on live TV after a national text message poll. The chosen
mascot should be something that reflects a unique aspect of our culture.
It should be something that is close to our hearts and instantly
recognizable to millions of people of different ages, professions and
nationalities.
For the first time in the history of the Olympic movement, a whole
nation will be taking part in the selection of its Olympic mascot. The
mascot for the Sochi Games will become the symbol of Russia to the whole
world, for some years to come - and the symbol of a whole epoch to the
people of Russia.
