The official mascot for the 2023 Qatar Asian Cup has been unveiled.
The Qatar Asian Cup Organizing Committee unveiled the mascots at a ceremony at Baharat Mecheireb Square in downtown Doha, Qatar. It's a family of five desert mice, the Jervois.
They are back after a 12-year absence. They were the mascots of the 2011 Asian Cup in Qatar. This is a rare recycling of a mascot for an international tournament.
Hassan Al Kuwari, Director of Marketing at the Qatar Asian Cup Organizing Committee, said: "The mascots evoke great memories of 2011 while capturing the excitement and energy of the new edition.
The desert mouse, or jerboa, lives in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East. They can run at speeds of over 20 kilometers per hour and jump up to 3 meters. That's a lot of speed and jumping power for a creature that's only 5 to 15 centimeters long. Hence the nickname "jumping rat".
The mascots have five different colors: blue for the first son Savug, yellow for the second son Timki, and pink for the eldest daughter Preetha. Each rat is named after a place in Qatar, with green being the father, Jikriti, and purple being the mother, Traene.
"I wanted to bring together the importance of teamwork in football and the importance of family life in Qatari society," said Ahmed 토토사이트 Al Madhid, the Qatari artist who created the mascots. "I wanted to dig deep into the rich ecosystem of Qatar and find animals that could best represent what happens on the pitch and in everyday life, and that's what I saw."
The World Cup in Qatar kicks off next month with the opening match between Qatar and Lebanon at 1 a.m. on June 13.
South Korea, led by Jürgen Klinsmann, are in Group E with Malaysia, Jordan, and Bahrain.