In this photo provided by the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics Organizing Committee yesterday, a polar bear, one of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics mascots is seen.

 

Russia's nationwide SMS-vote for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics mascots finished late yesterday. A snow leopard, polar bear and hare have been chosen as the mascots.

Among 24,000 candidates, only 11 sets of characters were finally posed on the official website of the 2014 Olympic Games mascot. The 11 sets included dolphin, polar and brown bears, matryoshka dolls, snowflake and bullfinch.

Sun Beam Boy and Snowflake Girl were chosen as mascots for the 2014 Paralympic Games.

The final decision was announced by Sochi organizing committee head Dmitry Chernyshenko at the end of a 115-minute nationally televised show on Russia's largest broadcaster Channel One, during which audiences could vote by phone for their favorite's mascots.

"I had an image of snow leopard as an immediate association with Sochi," local reports quoted Vadim Pak as saying, who was the author of the snow leopard from the Far Eastern city of Nakhodka.

"Sochi lies in the Caucasus, and show leopards live in mountains. That's why I started drawing them...I drew lots of sketches before choosing the best one and sending it by post," he said.

The nationwide campaign to find a mascot for the 2014 Olympics kicked off on September 1, 2010. The organizers said the mascot "should encompass a range of features characteristic of Russia, and at the same time be intelligible to people of every age, profession and nationality."

Earlier today, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he would like the leopard to become the official mascot.