Mascots

The official mascots for the 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games were unveiled on May 19, 2010. It marks the second time (after Vancouver) that both Olympic and Paralympic mascots were unveiled at the same time.

Wenlock and Mandeville are animations depicting two drops of steel from a steelworks in Bolton. They are named Wenlock, after the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock, which held a forerunner of the current Olympic Games, and Mandeville, after Stoke Mandeville, a village in Buckinghamshire where a forerunner to the Paralympic Games were first held.

The writer Michael Morpurgo wrote the story concept to the mascots, and an animation was produced. It is intended that this will form part of an ongoing series concerning the mascots in the run-up to the Games in 2012.

Two stories have been created about the mascots: Out Of A Rainbow, the story of how Wenlock and Mandeville came to be, and Adventures On A Rainbow, which features the children from Out Of A Rainbow meeting the mascots and trying out many different Olympic and Paralympic sports.

The 2012 Olympic mascot Wenlock (L) and Paralympic mascot Mandeville pose for photographers in the playground at St. Paul's primary school in London May 19, 2010. [Agencies]