Paris 2024 Olympics, Paralympics mascot is a smiling hat
- Organisers didn’t want an animal or other creature like mascots at previous Games, but instead wanted something that represented an ‘ideal’
- The two mascots share a motto of ‘Alone we go faster, but together we go further’
The mascots for the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics have been revealed – a Phrygian cap.
The soft red cap, also known as a liberty cap, is an updated version of a conical hat worn in antiquity in places such as Persia, the Balkans, Thrace, Dacia and Phrygia, a place in modern day Turkey where the name originates. It later became a symbol of the pursuit of liberty in the French Revolution – and is still worn by the figure of Marianne, the national personification of France since that time.
The Olympic cap is triangular in shape, and comes complete with friendly smile, blue eyes, tricolour ribbon and big coloured sneakers.
The Paralympic version features a prosthetic leg that goes to the knee – the first time such a mascot sports a visible disability, organisers said.
Michael Jeremiasz, gold medallist in wheelchair tennis at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, said the prosthesis sends an inclusive message to disabled people around the world.
“That’s the key for us, because we suffer from being invisible in society,” he said. “We have to use Paris 2024 as a powerful tool to change our rights.”