Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games mascots are unveiled
The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games unveiled on Wednesday the futuristic superhero mascots for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Organizers last year received more than 2,000 entries from the general public in a nationwide competition, from which they short-listed three pairs of designs in December, Reuters reported.
Students from more than 200,000 classes at around 16,000 Japanese elementary schools took part in the selection process, with each class casting a single vote.
The winning pair, created by designer and illustrator Ryo Taniguchi, received more than half of the total and easily beat the other two pairs.
The Tokyo 2020 mascots, whose names will be decided by the same selection panel, will take the torch from their cuddly Pyeongchang Winter Games counterparts Soohorang, a white tiger, and Bandabi, a black bear.