Athan

I agree that a strong European bid wouldn't be easy to reject after these years, even if it's with another double award, and I'm actually quite surprised that although the Spanish NOC President really wants Madrid to host, there haven't been any serious talks about a possible bid so far. They may be waiting for the local and general elections in 2019 and 2020 to make a decision. As for Indonesia, I always like seeing new hosts. They now have the experience of the Asian Games but it also seems that Jakarta as a city isn't as attractive as other possible non-traditional candidates like Cairo or Mumbai/Delhi, so I wouldn't know what to expect if it was between these three. The good news for the IOC is that there are already more cities interested in 2032 than there were for 2024.

Haven't they released the pictures of the mascots doing the sports yet? I can't find them anywhere.

I don't know if this only one Olympic and one Paralympic mascot trend is a new requirement or has just been a coincidence, probably the latter, but I really hope it lasts for a long time. One mascot is definitely much more memorable than a group of them.

So the 20 schools we knew about turned out to be quite representative of the outcome! Not only Twitter favourite became the least liked option among children but also the winning mascots were the least popular in social media, so I'm afraid that's the reason why many reactions are not as positive as expected. There are many people saying the winning mascots are too generic, not distinctively Japanese and also many "B/C was better" comments, but I guess that's normal when other candidates are shown and people can make comparisons. Despite C being my favourite, I like the winning Olympic mascot. I agree that it may not be extremely original, but it has some characteristic elements both in terms of design and personality that I really like. Not sure about the Paralympic mascot though. I was hoping for a short video to see them in motion and have a more accurate opinion but it seems we'll have to wait until summer. Any suggestions for their names?

I found an interesting analysis of Twitter trends. http://imatsui.com/trend/201802/ As we already knew, C is the most popular candidate on social media. However, A leads within the youngest age group, and this is the only one who actually got a vote. So although C appears to be the overall favourite, I'd say A is the most likely to win and perhaps B can give a surprise since it was reported to be the early leader on the first day of voting. Still, I'm rooting for C.

Mascot voting finished yesterday. According to Tokyo 2020, there have been more than 200,000 classroom votes from around 16,000 schools. The winners will be announced next Wednesday, February 28. https://tokyo2020.org/en/news/notice/20180222-01.html

I agree that the ceremony lacked some wow and more original elements (not easy to do a super spectacular show in a stadium of these characteristics), but overall I think it was nice to watch and the fast pace was perfect. The cauldron lighting was strange indeed. That metallic structure seemed out of place and its meaning is still not clear. Had it been disguised as an ice column or something related to the ice where it came out from, it probably wouldn't have been so puzzling.

No. More than 60,000 classes had already voted two weeks ago and we only know about 20 approximately, less than 0.04%. Only counting these 20 schools, it's a close race between A and B, with C far behind.

Some updates I've found: A was the clear winner at the Japanese School in Perth, Australia with four classroom votes. One vote for B and none for C. Option A seems to have won at this school in Okinawa too. http://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/articles/-/196301 I don't know what happened here but there's a picture in which option A appears crossed out on the board, so I guess it was between B and C. https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASL1D4FPWL1DUTQP00S.html And finally, it was B or C leading at the moment of the last picture at the American School in Japan, but the final results aren't shown.

If the online translator is right, option C won at the Motomiya Elementary School in Morioka. http://news.ibc.co.jp/item_31991.html

Here it is!

Beijing 2022 is about to launch its emblems!

Absolutely, although if I'm not mistaken, the rules specified that the mascots had to be genderless, so they can't really make much use of that. It also appears that the youngest students tend not to like C very much, whereas older students are more likely to vote C.

OK, I've made up my mind. I choose C. Compared to previous Olympic and Paralympic mascots, I think these are the ones that stand out the most.

I guess I'll have to rethink this... Kyoto Intl. School has published the results of their voting. A was the clear winner there: