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The London Olympic team has unveiled its official mascots for 2012. After rejecting a Big Ben with limbs, animated teapots and giant Trafalgar Square pigeons, the designers settled on a slightly less quintessentially British image - a pair of streamlined, Pixar-styled cyclopic aliens.

The London link is nodded to with the yellow lights on their foreheads, reminiscent of the capital's iconic black cabs. Though their core images look like a pair of metallic monsters, the idea is that their form will change to reflect various different features of their journey round the UK in the run-up to the games.

As the recently crafted legend has it, these streamlined Cyclops were born from the last two droplets of steel left over after the construction of the 2012 Olympic stadium. The shape of Wenlock's head mimics the shape of the roof of the Olympic Stadium, whilst the three prongs on the head of the crested Mandeville reflect the Paralympic emblem. Both wear the Olympic rings as friendship bracelets.

Despite their futuristic form, the mascots' names conjure up the founding fathers of the modern Olympic Games. Wenlock, the mascot for the main games, is named after the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock, where the French academic Baron Pierre de Coubertin watched the town games back in the 19th century. So captivated was the baron by the sporting contest, and inspired by the international spirit of the Ancient Greek originals, he set out to resurrect the games.

Mandeville takes his name from the birthplace of the Paralympic Games, the Buckinghamshire town of Stoke Mandeville. Here, on the same day as the opening ceremony for the 1948 London games, the German neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttmann held a sporting competition for World War II soldiers with spinal injuries. The games grew into today's Paralympic contest.

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