Improving the Olympics
What aspects of the Olympics most need improving?
What do you think about Olympic mascots?
How could Olympic mascots be improved?
Discuss these ideas:
 Use a pre-existing character
 Give the contract to a company with experience of designing characters, e.g. Sanrio or
Nintendo, and let them decide
 Let the local mayor decide
 Let the local councillors decide
 Allow members of the public to send in their own designs
 Allow designers from all over the world to take part in a competition
 Allow one famous designer to choose the design rather than deciding by committee
 Have a public vote
 Have a public vote in rounds with the designers explaining their ideas and improving
on their efforts, like a kind of American Idol for designers
 Employ one famous designer and let them do what they like
 Let a panel of different experts (e.g. a designer, an architect and an artist) decide
 Use an update of a good previous Olympic character
 Have more rounds in the competition, e.g. top 100, then top 10, then top 3
 Give the contract to a famous children’s book illustrator and let them decide
 Let school children design it
How could you improve the Olympics more generally?
Discuss these ideas:
 Ban cities from holding the Olympics more than once
 Change continent in a fixed pattern, e.g. always Asia (including Australasia) then
Europe then the Americas then Africa then back to Asia
 Award it to a country rather than a city
 Have the games more often
 Have the games less often
 Make it less commercial, e.g. less obvious advertising
 Have more sports
 Have fewer sports
 Have sports that appeal more to young people, e.g. adventure sports like skydiving
 Eliminate old-fashioned sports like horse riding
 Allow to public to vote on more things, e.g. who should light the Olympic flame
Written by Alex Case for UsingEnglish.com © 2012