For decades, each edition of the Olympic and Paralympic Games has been represented by a mascot, with varying public reactions—from the much-criticized “Izzy” from Atlanta in 1996 to the beloved panda from Beijing in 2022 and the controversial big-eyed hats of Paris 2024.
Taking up the post for 2026 are Milo and Tina, a pair of sibling stoats (or short-tailed weasels, as they are called in the US) wearing scarves.
The two have names inspired by the two host cities of the Winter Games, Milan (Milano) and Cortina d’Ampezzo, and are described by the organizers as the “first openly Gen Z mascots”.
“Our stoats are two cheerful and laid-back teenagers, energetic, determined and with strong personalities, sometimes charmingly irreverent with adults and eager to assert their role as protagonists in the world to come,” wrote the Milano Cortina organizing committee.
You can differentiate them by the color of their fur and their stories.
Meet Tina and Milo
Tina, the mascot of the Olympic Games, is cream-colored with a brown tail tip. She is described as a “creative and practical person who lives in the city and loves going to shows and concerts” and “marvels at the power of beauty and its transformative capacity”.
“I like to explore, try new things, change,” she says in her biography. “Every winter, however, nothing stops me from returning to my beloved mountains to have fun with my brother and friends.”
Milo, the mascot of the Paralympic Games, is brown with a white belly. He lives in the mountains and loves playing pranks, playing in the snow, and inventing musical instruments in his free time, say the organizers. He was born without a paw but learned to walk using his tail.
“It was never a big problem for me, perhaps because I was always taught that obstacles, if you look at them closely and understand how to approach them, turn into super trampolines!” says his biography. How they got the job The mascots are the ambassadors of the Games, welcoming athletes and spectators in the host country while promoting their identity and values online and abroad. It’s an important decision. And, for these Games, it all started with Italian schoolchildren.
As part of the creation process, Italy’s Ministry of Education invited elementary and middle school students to submit ideas for the mascots—and received more than 1,600 proposals.
A public opinion poll was conducted with the two finalist ideas: a pair of flowers (an edelweiss and a white bellflower) on a journey from the mountain to the city, created by students from Lombardy, and the sporty weasels with Olympic dreams, created by students from the Calabria region.
Milo and Tina were officially presented to the public in February 2024, almost two years before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Milan. And they weren’t alone: the organizers decided they would be accompanied by six small white bellflowers, known as The Flo, flowers that symbolize rebirth and were inspired by the runner-up proposal in the contest.
Weasels: everything you need to know
The organizers claim that the weasels are the “ideal animals to embody the contemporary Italian spirit” that guides the Games, citing their liveliness, agility, and speed.
“They are curious by nature, have the surprising ability to change the color of their fur according to the seasons, and the resilience needed to adapt to a challenging habitat like the mountains,” they wrote. “They will guide us to a future that respects the environment and differences, increasingly sustainable and promising.”
They belong to the mustelid family, which includes weasels, otters, ferrets, badgers, and wolverines (but no longer skunks, which were reclassified based on new genetic evidence in the 1990s).
Weasels are native to Eurasia and North America and can be found in the Italian Alps, usually under the name stoat, which refers to their white winter fur. In the warmer months, they have light brown fur with white belly, neck, paws, and chin.
The black tips of their tails, present year-round, have been used to decorate royal carpets and robes for centuries. The U.S. National Park Service (NPS) states that weasels were considered an “immaculate symbol of purity” in Europe for generations, before the word acquired its “undeserved reputation for duplicity”.
“I doubt anyone has ever been thanked for using the term ‘weasel’ as an insult. But maybe they should be,” the text continues. “The weasel family is extremely resourceful, ambitious, brave, agile, energetic, and, in many cases, simply adorable.”
Weasels may be known for their long, small, and slender bodies, but they are capable of hunting prey more than five times their own size. They eat practically everything: rodents, birds, mice, voles, eggs, small snakes, insects, and much more. But weasels’ favorite prey are rabbits, and they have a unique way of capturing them: the power of dance.
“It is believed that the exaggerated twisting, jumping, and lunging movements disorient and perhaps even hypnotize some species of prey,” states the National Park Service (NPS). “The weasel gets closer and closer until it’s too late for the prey to escape, with the final leap landing on top of the animal, followed quickly by the fatal bite.”
Source: npr.org by Rachel Treisman