The Olympic mascots are fictional characters who represent the cultural heritage of the location where the Olympic Games are taking place. They are often an animal native to the area or human figures.
One of the first Olympic mascots was created for the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble; a stylized cartoon character on skis named Schuss. The first official Olympic mascot appeared in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, and was a rainbow-colored Dachshund dog named Waldi.
