Paris presents the latest in long history of curious Olympic mascots
On Monday, the Olympic flame was lit in Greece, and the traditional torch began its 68-stage threemonth journey to Paris, where it will arrive on July 25 to signal the start the following day of the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad.
As the torch relay travels the length of France, and global interest in the Olympics grows daily over the next three months, one question above all others will be puzzling sports fans around the world.
What on earth is that peculiar mascot Paris has chosen to represent itself on the world stage?
The answer is a hat — or, more specifically, a Phrygian cap, as modeled by Marianne, symbol of the French Revolution.
Captured in oils in an 1830 painting by Eugene Delacroix, on show in the Louvre, Marianne and her hat are omnipresent in France, represented in busts and statues throughout the nation and pictured on coins and stamps.
Traditionally, Olympic mascots have either been animals or invented creatures of some sort.
But in a minor revolution of its own, 235 years after the storming of the Bastille, the Paris Olympic committee has gone in a different direction.
Instead, it has chosen to animate an object — not, as most people might have assumed, the Eiffel Tower (too predictable and, some might argue, too identifiable) but a piece of historic millinery.
Meet the “Phryges” (pronounced “freej” — the “s” is silent.)
There are two of the things, decked out in red, white and blue, with one sporting a running blade on its right leg to symbolize the Paralympics.
In the official online Olympic shop, they are available as plush toys or printed variously on backpacks, T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, tote bags, caps, water bottles, badges, lunch boxes. You can even buy an actual Phrygian cap, although regrettably only in infant size.
What has revolution got to do with the Olympics? Simple, says the committee behind the Phryges: “As Paris 2024’s vision is to demonstrate
that sport can change lives, the mascots will be playing a major role by leading a revolution through sport.”
To scholars of ancient history, the hat is also a symbol of 18th-century cultural appropriation.
Although it came to symbolize the French Revolution, the Phrygian cap was worn originally in ancient Phrygia, a kingdom that thrived between 1200 and 700 BCE in the center of what is today Turkiye.
There is a funny thing about Olympic mascots. Including Paris, there have been 28 of the things since 1968, when the very first one appeared, but most people would be hard pressed to remember any of them.
It has not been for want of trying on behalf of the organizing committees — there have been some very peculiar offerings.
Take “Miraitowa,” the mascot of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Remember him — or it?
A subtle blend of “traditional and futurist style,” Miraitowa embodied “both the old and the new, echoing the concept of innovation from harmony.”
One of 2,042 submitted designs, it was chosen in a poll of Japanese primary school children.
In 2014, Russia played it relatively straight and, perhaps unable to settle on a single mascot, chose three for the winter games in Sochi: a hare, a polar bear and a leopard, for no apparent reason.
It was certainly a welcome break from London’s surreal offering in 2012. “Wenlock” was a baffling confection of obscure references — a metallic look explained by the fact that he was, supposedly, “made from one of the last drops of steel used to build the Olympic Stadium,” the light on his head reminiscent of that found on London’s famous black cabs, and the shape of his forehead “identical to that of the Olympic Stadium roof.”