The Olympic mascots

This one's especially for Cufflinks, since he requested it, and comes via the Olympics Mania blog and the official Olympics website.

The mascots for this Winter Olympics in Turin are, wait for it, Neve and Gliz. And here they are in all their glory:

Neve, left, is a snowball. Gliz, right, is an ice cube. Neve is a girl snowball, Gliz is a boy ice cube. Umm, obviously.

Apparently, they are the work of a 37 Portuguese gent named Pedro Albuquerque. According to the Olympics website, Neve and Gliz:

reflect the spirit of the Italian Olympic event: passion, enthusiasm, culture, elegance, and love of the environment and of sport. They are the symbol of a young generation that is full of life and energy.

Personally, though, I think that Neve and Gliz actually relect the fact that Olympic mascots, and indeed the mascots for all large-scale sports events, are crappy, idiotic-looking tat and are best forgotten as quickly as possible. They are a symbol of an unhealthy dependence on marketing and merchandising that caters to the lowest common denominator and a young generation that is bereft of taste and the ability to think critically. Call me a cynic, but come on, those mascots are pants!

In the interests of completeness, here's the official medal tally at the end of day 7, as ever straight from the official Torino2006.org website.

Rank	NOC				Total
1	United States	6	3	1	10
2	Germany	5	4	2	11
3	Russian Fed.	5	2	4	11
4	Austria	3	2	1	6
5	Estonia	3	0	0	3
6	Canada	2	4	5	11
7	Switzerland	2	2	2	6
8	Sweden	2	1	1	4
9	Italy	2	0	3	5
10	France	2	0	2	4
11	Norway	1	6	6	13
12	China	1	2	3	6
13	Netherlands	1	2	1	4
14	Korea	1	1	1	3
15	Australia	1	0	0	1
16	Finland	0	2	3	5
17	Czech Republic	0	2	0	2
18	Bulgaria	0	1	0	1
18	Croatia	0	1	0	1
18	Great Britain	0	1	0	1
18	Slovakia	0	1	0	1
22	Latvia	0	0	1	1
22	Ukraine	0	0	1	1

Tags:
sport, Winter Olympics, Turin, mascot, medals