The mascot for the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics was a white tiger named Soohorang. The name “Soohorang” is a combination of the Korean word “Sooho,” which means “protection,” and “rang,” which means “tiger.” The white tiger is an important symbol in Korean culture and is believed to have the ability to ward off evil spirits and bring good fortune. Soohorang was chosen as the official mascot of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics to represent the spirit of the games and the values of peace and harmony. The white tiger is a strong, powerful, and noble creature, embodying the values of courage, determination, and resilience. The design of Soohorang was inspired by the traditional Korean culture and folk art.
PyeongChang 2018 Announces White Tiger and Asiatic Black Bear as Mascots for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games
Seoul, June 2- The official mascots for the PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (POCOG) are here. A white tiger named “Soohorang” and an Asiatic black bear named “Bandabi” will each represent the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Both animals appear in Korea’s foundation mythology and are closely associated with Korean culture and folklore.
The mascots were finalised after the PyeongChang 2018 Organizing Committee’s presentation of the Olympic mascot to the IOC Executive Board held today in Lausanne and the IPC’s prior approval of the Paralympic mascot.
Tigers traditionally represent the shape of the Korean peninsula, and especially the white tiger is considered a sacred guardian animal. Its color is also indicative of the snow and ice of winter sports. The name “Soohorang” is a combination of several meanings in the Korean language. “Sooho” is the Korean word for “protection,” meaning that it protects the athletes, spectators and all participants of the Olympic Games. “Rang” comes from the middle letter of “ho-rang-i,” which means “tiger,” and also from the last letter of “Jeongseon Arirang,” a traditional folk music of Gangwon Province, where the host city is located.
The bear is symbolic of strong will and courage. The Asiatic Black Bear is also the symbol animal of Gangwon Province. In the name “Bandabi,” “banda” comes from “bandal” meaning “half-moon”, indicating the white crescent on the chest of the Asiatic Black Bear, and “bi” has the meaning of celebrating the Games.
The mascots are designed to express a wide spectrum of emotions such as passion, joy, enthusiasm and love to actively engage the public. This type of design reflects Korea’s unique contemporary cultural trend of using visual characters to express emotions. Anyone and everyone will be able to use the mascots across a multiple choice of digital platforms and promote the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Games through interactive communication.
POCOG President LEE Hee-beom stated, “The mascots have been designed to embody the collective will of everyone for the successful hosting of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2018, and experts of various fields contributed in the process. The mascots will now spearhead our communication activities and marketing initiatives. With today’s meaningful step forward, POCOG will use the momentum to gain more public support and excitement for the Games.”
Welcoming “Soohorang,” Gunilla Lindberg, Chair of the IOC Coordination Commission for the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018, commented, “The white tiger is a great choice for mascot. It’s a beautiful animal, strongly associated with Korean culture. It also symbolises the close link between the Olympic Winter Games and the natural environment. I congratulate the PyeongChang 2018 team on their selection. I’m sure the new mascot will be very popular with Koreans and people around the world.”
Sir Philip Craven, IPC President, said, “I am delighted to welcome ‘Bandabi’ to the Paralympic Family of mascots. Over the coming months ‘Bandabi’ will represent the spirit of the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games and help to convey the Paralympic vison and values to millions of people all around the world.”
“Paralympic mascots are iconic and essential parts of any Games. Like the Paralympians who will compete at PyeongChang 2018, bears are strong, courageous and determined creatures who make the most of their surroundings. Bears are also seen as friendly and cuddly, and I am excited to see how ‘Bandabi’ interacts with the public between now and the Games,” he added.
Following this announcement, POCOG will hold launching ceremonies in July to introduce “Soohorang” and “Bandabi” at Seoul and PyeongChang. The mascots will make their international debut at the PyeongChang 2018 House during the Rio Games in August and September and continue their busy schedule by traveling all around Korea attending many events and exhibitions.
Olympic Mascots Are Creepy AF
The design of Soohorang was inspired by the traditional Korean culture and folk art. The mascot featured a friendly and approachable appearance, with a smiling face and a playful pose. The color white represented purity and innocence, while the blue highlights on the mascot's body symbolized the snow and ice of the winter season.
The Pyeongchang games break from Olympic precedent by featuring a pair of friendly looking mascots.
Patrick Caldwell
News Editor Bio | FollowComing soon to a nightmare near you. Mark Makela/ZUMA
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There have been a host of controversies swirling around the 2018 Winter Olympics, ranging from Mike Pence’s non-diplomacy to the aftermath of a widespread Russian doping scandal that kept the country from officially competing. But there is one frequent problem of past games that the South Korea Olympics has managed to avoid: haunting the dreams of children worldwide with ghoulish mascots that belong in a Guillermo Del Toro film rather than being peddled as kid-friendly merchandise.
While you most likely associate the Olympics with the five multi-colored interlocking rings, each of the games since 1968 has featured a unique anthropomorphized mascot as well. And more often than not these fuzzy creatures have been horrific violations of nature.
But not this year—thank god. The Pyeongchang games feature a pair of sensible animal mascots, the sort you could envision a small child actually wanting as a stuffed animal. The primary mascot is known as Soohorang, a jolly-looking white tiger (and look at that cute little nose!).
Sharifulin Valery / ZUMA
Soohorang is joined by Bandabi, a black bear who is the mascot for the paraolympics that will take place in Pyeongchang next month. The bear wears a winter beanie! Adorbs. As a pair, they are perfect.
Daniel Kalker / ZUMA
What we see here is an under-noticed, important break from Olympic precedent. Compare Soohorang and Bandabi to Wenlock, the mascot for the 2012 summer games in London.
What toymaker approved this?
David Poultney / ZUMA
Per the official description on the Olympic website, which has handily memorialized origin stories for all of the mascots, “The light on his head is based on those found on London’s famous black cabs.” Of course! It continues, “The shape of his forehead is identical to that of the Olympic Stadium roof. His eye is the lens of a camera, filming everything he sees. On his wrists, he wears five bracelets in the colours of the Olympic rings. And the three points on his head represent the three places on the podium for the medal winners.”
In other words, Wenlock is a Frankenstonian creation combining various inanimate building objects into a cyclops that, one must assume, feeds on human brains. The Olympic website also includes the fun fact that during the summer games, “streets, parks and underground station entrances in London were decorated with 84 sculptures of Wenlock and the Paralympic mascot Mandeville standing 2 metres 30 tall and each weighing a ton, to help guide tourists during the Games.” I applaud the bravery of people who followed Wenlock’s directions, instead of fleeing for their lives in the opposite direction. (And with only one eye, Wenlock presumably lacks depth perception, so probably not the best person to task with offering directions?)
It’s really not fair to blame Wenlock, though. Wenlock was just following the traditions created by his forebears, like the first Olympic mascot, which dates back to the 1968 games in Grenoble, France. Named Schuss, a reference to a skiing term, the 1968 mascot was a creature of…well, who the hell knows what this is? Maybe it’s a thermometer? A ball on top of a lightening bolt on a single ski?
That was followed up by a fine, if forgettable, rainbow colored dog as the mascot for the 1972 games in Munich. In 1976, Innsbruck, Austria, went with a shoddily constructed snowball with arms (as if someone tried to build a traditional three-layer snowman but gave up after rolling one ball). From there things were mostly fine—the next decade saw mainly standard sports team-style mascots.
Then, in 1988, things started to go south. Calgary went with an oddball pair of polar bears named Hidy and Howdy, a brother-sister combo, that were just a little too smiley.
They look a little cozy for “siblings.”
In 1994, Lillehammer revived the family idea, but turned it into even more of a horror movie trope by going with children that look like twins, Haakon and Kristin, which marked the first time an Olympic mascot was human. According to the Olympics’ description of the undeniably evil pair, “Although they wear medieval clothes in reference to their historical roots, they are modern children and express the interests and visions of young people.” Yes, totally normal modern-day children who dress in medieval garb. Not creepy at all Norway, not creepy at all.
Come play with us. Forever, and ever, and ever.
But the haunting factor ramped up markedly when the games came to Atlanta in 1996. They went with a…thing, initially named “Whatizit” before a poll of children renamed it “Izzy.”
Izzy née Whatizit was first introduced during the ’92 closing ceremony, living up to its initial name during an awkward dance routine.
Izzy is a monstrosity. Its official olympic description offers this horrifying explanation: “A product of information technology Izzy is blue and wears training shoes. The five Olympic rings are in various places around his body…Over time, a mouth appeared where there had first been only lips; stars appeared in his eyes; and his initially skinny legs became more muscled. Finally, a nose grew in the middle of his face.” How the hell does a product of information technology grow a nose? Why does it have muscles? Atlantans had a dystopian take on the future back in the ’90s. And this being the ’90s, Izzy was branded with tie-ins out the wazoo, including pogs and a Sega Genesis game.
After Izzy, the floodgates were open. Following Atlanta, Olympic host countries apparently felt free to share their nightmares with the rest of the world. In 1998, Nagano went with a quartet of misshapen owls. Creepy! In 2000, Australians’ choice of a duck-billed platypus, kookaburra, and echidna featured a disturbing amount of musculature for a trio of cartoon animals. Creepy! In 2006, Turin managed to take seemingly benign objects, an ice cube and snowball, and somehow made them…creepy!
Even when Olympic hosts somehow manage to avoid making their mascot disturbing, they can still get caught up in controversy. For 2014, Sochi went with passable animal mascots (though unimaginatively, they were just named the Hare, the Polar Bear, and the Leopard).
Vladimir Smirnov / ZUMA
But this being Russia, there was of course the whiff of an election scandal. “In Russia, accusations of corruption taint even Olympics mascot selection,” read a 2011 Christian Science Monitor headline. As Time explained back then, problems rose from then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s professed support for one mascot in particular. “Vladimir Putin loves (big) cats,” the magazine wrote. “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.” Some attributed the leopard’s late rise in the public voting to Putin putting his thumb on the scale. If only Hillary Clinton had read the Time article about the “cuddly controversy”…
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I Long for the Days When the Winter Olympics Mascot Was an Abstract Monster
Have you met Soohorang, the mascot of the 2018 Winter Olympics? The white tiger is everywhere in Pyeongchang, including on the podiums where medal winners get stuffed toy versions of the mascot. Soohorang is cute, cuddly, and perfect for merchandizing. In other words, this is a mascot that belongs in the Summer Olympics. Unlike the Summer Games, which are the default Olympiad setting, the Winter Olympics are profoundly unnatural. All the events require equipment, and athletes often reach inhuman speeds. (Usain Bolt tops out at around 23 miles per hour, which would be extremely slow for a bobsled team.) The sports that don’t involve extreme velocity, like curling or biathlon, make up for their slothfulness by adding brooms and rifles. Like those accoutrements, the Winter Games are themselves inexplicably bizarre, and the mascots should reflect this.
The Winter Olympics have a storied history of being represented by odd and frightening monsters. The first-ever Olympic mascot appeared at the 1968 Games in Grenoble, France. Schuss, a bulbous tomato atop what appears to be a People’s Choice Award, was not officially recognized by the IOC at the time, but the squiggly guy willed himself, and the very idea of Olympic mascots, into existence. To initiate change you need to be provocative, and a fuzzy cartoon animal never could’ve scared the powers-that-be as much as Schuss did.
The Mascot Of The 2018 Winter Olympics Is A White Tiger With A Unique Name
Maybe you guys already knew this, but the Olympics always have a universal mascot. Don't you just love that? I can't imagine the pressure of the person inside the costume. Like, "No big deal, but the whole world is watching." This year, the 2018 Winter Olympics' mascot is a white tiger named Sooharang, and he's cute as hell.
The Olympic mascot is always an animal or character that's symbolic of the host country and its culture. This year, the 2018 Winter Olympics is taking place in PyeongChang, South Korea, which is really, really cold. According to Olympic.org, white tigers have traditionally popped up in Korean folktales in the form of a guardian or protector. Tigers also symbolize trust and strength. (Cool little bonus, the color white is seasonally appropriate for the Winter Games, which take place in snowy, icy places. Obvi.)
Additionally, the name "Soohorang" is not an accident. The Korean word "sooho" means "protection," and "rang" comes from the Korean word for "tiger," which is "ho-rang-i." In short, Soohorang is a protector of the 2018 Winter Olympics. Olympics.org goes on to explain the word "rang" is also part of the name for traditional folk music from the PyeongChang area. The music is called "Jeongseon Arirang."
Everybody still with me?
Soohorang made his big debut in July at special events in Seoul and PyeongChang. Chair of the IOC Coordination Commission for the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 Gunilla Lindberg said,
It’s a beautiful animal, strongly associated with Korean culture. It also symbolises the close link between the Olympic Winter Games and the natural environment. I’m sure the new mascot will be very popular with Koreans and people around the world.
Like traditional mascots, Soohorang is there to keep everyone pumped about the Winter Games and viewers watching from home engaged and happy. Be sure to spot him at the Opening Ceremonies taking place tomorrow, Feb. 9, on NBC. While the actual show is a secret, we know the rundown will look something like this:
- Entry by the head of state
- Playing of the national anthem
- The parade of participants
- The symbolic release of pigeons
- The head of state declares the Games open
- Raising the Olympic flag and playing the Olympic anthem
- The taking of the Olympic oath by an athlete
- The taking of the Olympic oath by an official
- The taking of the Olympic oath by a coach
- The Olympic flame and the torch relay
- The artistic program
Along with Soohorang, viewers can expect to see a beautiful performance by Korean R&B artist, Insooni, who is singing the torch relay song. The song is titled "Let Everyone Shine," and just like the mascot, the song is designed to inspire and unite the Olympic athletes and the world.
All of us gathered here share one dream / It is the moment to rise again, and follow the flame / With a shining dream deep inside of you / Together we can move forward one step at a time / When all our dreams come together / and shine as one bright flame
Let everyone shine / Let everyone shine and shine / Lighting up every corner of the world / Let everyone shine / Let everyone shine and shine / Shining on you, here and now / All the time
Our stories filled with dreams and passion / Will lead to new goals and hope for tomorrow / When all our dreams come together / and shine as one bright flame
Let everyone shine / Let everyone shine and shine
Tune in for all the fun beginning at 8 p.m. EST on NBC. Go get it, Soohorang!
To learn more, visit teamusa.org. The Winter Olympics will air live starting February 8.
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Soohorang played an essential role in promoting the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics and engaging with the spectators and athletes. The mascot appeared in various forms, including plush toys, costumes, and animated videos. Soohorang became a beloved and recognizable figure, capturing the hearts of people worldwide. Overall, the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics mascot, Soohorang, was a significant symbol of the games, representing the spirit of Korean culture and the values of the Olympic Movement. The friendly and charismatic presence of Soohorang added an extra element of excitement and joy to the event, leaving a lasting impression on all those who witnessed it..
Reviews for "Behind the Scenes: The Making of Soohorang and Bandabi"
1. John - 1 star - I cannot stand the Pyeongchang 2018 mascot. It is one of the most unappealing and unoriginal mascots I have ever seen. The design is just a mishmash of random elements that have no connection to the Olympics or the host city. It lacks the charm and character that mascots are supposed to bring to the event. Overall, a huge disappointment.
2. Sarah - 2 stars - The Pyeongchang 2018 mascot is simply forgettable. It fails to capture the spirit and excitement of the Winter Olympics. The character design is bland and uninteresting, and there is nothing memorable or distinctive about it. I believe a mascot should be able to leave a lasting impression and evoke a sense of joy, but this one falls short.
3. David - 1 star - As someone who appreciates art and design, I find the Pyeongchang 2018 mascot to be a complete eyesore. The colors are garish and clash with each other, making it visually unappealing. The overall shape and structure seem hastily thrown together, lacking any thought or creativity. I expected more from an Olympic mascot, but this one is a definite miss.
4. Emily - 2 stars - The Pyeongchang 2018 mascot is underwhelming and fails to capture my attention. It lacks any unique or interesting features, making it easily forgettable. The choice of a white tiger as the mascot is also questionable, as it doesn't seem to have any relevance to the Winter Olympics or the host city. Overall, a bland and uninspired choice for a mascot.
5. Michael - 2 stars - The Pyeongchang 2018 mascot lacks personality and charm. It's a generic design that fails to stand out among other Olympic mascots. The choice of a tiger, although a national symbol of South Korea, feels forced and doesn't have a strong connection to the Winter Olympics. The design lacks the creativity and imagination that I expect from a mascot representing such a prestigious event.