Vinicius and Tom
official mascots of the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2016 Summer Paralympics / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vinicius is the mascot of the 2016 Summer Olympics, and Tom is the mascot of the 2016 Summer Paralympics. The mascots represent Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Vinicius represents Brazilian animals, and his body has parts of cats, monkeys, and birds. Tom represents Brazilian plant life.
A Brazilian company called Birdo made the mascots. The Olympic organizers only wanted mascots made by Brazilian companies. The organizers chose Birdo's mascots in August 2013, and they showed them to the public on 23 November 2014, but the mascots did not have names yet at that time. The organizers asked the public to choose names for them. The public chose to name the mascots after Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim. Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim wrote the song "The Girl from Ipanema".
The Olympic organizers made a children's television series about the mascots. The Rio organizers also made many toys and other merchandise of the mascots. The organizers gave wrestling coaches soft dolls of Vinicius. If the coaches did not like a referee's call, then they would throw the doll into the ring. Many people thought that this was funny. Paralympic medalists got special dolls of Tom. They were special because the leaves on Tom's head were the same color as their medals. Some observers liked how the mascots looked. Others thought they looked strange.[1][2]