Why is mandeville called that

Olympic Games. Olympics Wiki. Community Portal About Policy. Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? The real appeal of Wenlock and Mandeville, as it turns out, isn't necessarily their look, it's their ability to be customized online on a digital platform that Iris also helped create.

The reaction to the characters, of course, has been a bit all over the place. The Guardian described the crowd at the unveiling, for example, as "mostly baffled. Then it becomes your own. But it wasn't about loving or loathing a mascot, it's about getting involved.

They aren't 'the' mascots -- they are your mascots. And who knows what else; after all, we're just at the start of the journey, and the possibilities are endless. Each of the mascots' names Wenlock and Mandeville carry a great deal of historical significance, tying London's history to the tradition of the Olympic and Paralympic games.

Wenlock's character was inspired by the small town in Shropshire called Much Wenlock, which actually hosted a precursor to what we know as the modern Summer Olympic Games back in the s.

The Wenlock Games, as they were known back then, helped inspire Baron Pierre de Coubertain to conceptualize the modern Olympic Games in And what about Wenlock's partner, Mandeville? That character was named after the Stoke Mandeville Hospital, located in Buckinghamshire about miles southeast from Much Wenlock, which was actually the birthplace of the Paralympic Games. Back then, the Stoke Mandeville Games was simply a series of competitions held for soldiers injured from the war, but it is largely regarded as the inspiration for the Paralympics.

With the help of author Murpurgo, Wenlock and Mandeville were conceptualized as two drops of steel that came from a factory in Bolton, which were both taken home by a retiring worker. That worker takes these steel droplets and molds characters out of the metal for his grandchildren. He gives them each a single eye, which is supposed to act as a camera lens to both see the world and respond to it. They look like something you'd find in an apple on Halloween.

What's next, Buckingham, the plush handgun that just wants a squeeze? How did this happen? It's as though designer Grant Hunter found himself without a good concept on the day he was supposed to present one, and as he shaved in the shower, desperately looking around for inspiration, he glanced down at his razor and thought, "Eureka!

Horrible metal bits! One-eyed bits! And thus, the Cyclopean nightmares Wenlock and Mandeville were born, scribbled on a pad of paper at a stop light and approved by the legally blind Locog organisers.