It was the 50th anniversary marking the announcement that a dachshund would be the official mascot of the 1972 Olympics in Munich, the first time that the Games would have such a symbol.

Olympic mascots are symbolic figures representing the host country and its culture, introduced to engage the public and promote the Olympic spirit. The first official mascot was Waldi, a dachshund ...

While the Paris mascot was chosen well in advance, Shuss was designed in a hurry — his designer had just one night to prepare a submission. The 1972 Munich Games featured Waldi, a dachshund.

Bing Dwen Dwen, the official mascot of the 2022 Winter Olympics, has been one of the more popular Olympic mascots in recent memory, with people lining the streets to purchase their own version of the ...

List of the Olympics Mascots Year-on-Year. The first ever Olympic mascot was "Smoky" from the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and then the idea of a mascot was reused 36 years later, in 1968 ...

Mascots have been a key element of the Olympics since the Winter Games in Grenoble, France, in 1968. It was named Schuss and was a cartoon character on skis. Waldi was the first official mascot, a ...

Waldi, the official mascot of the 1972 Olympics, was modeled on a dachshund called Fritz (the real dog in the middle). Bettmann Archive/Getty Images.

When the first official Olympic mascot—a rainbow-hued dachshund named Waldi—debuted at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich, Germany, it became a popular symbol of both the international event and ...