British-Malaysian girl behind 2022 Commonwealth Games mascot

 

Emma Lou with the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games mascot after winning the competition to design the Games’ mascot. (Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games pic)

PETALING JAYA: The official mascot for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games is a lovable bull called Perry. And the mascot was designed by a 10-year-old British-Malaysian girl.

Emma Lou, whose parents moved to the UK from Kuala Lumpur in 2007, won a national competition to design the official mascot for the Games, the second-largest multi-discipline event in the world, after the Olympics.

The Games’ organisers said the design by Lou, from Bolton in Greater Manchester, was chosen from the hundreds submitted by children aged 5 to 15 to create a mascot that represents the history, identity and culture of Birmingham.

“I feel as if I’m in a dream! I think the mascot is great, he looks so cute,” said Emma who was born in the UK in 2010.

“I am so excited that my design will be seen by so many people!” she said in a statement issued by the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games’ organisers.

“I chose a bull because of the Bullring in Birmingham, and I decided to use hexagons because they are the strongest shape and the whole world depends on each other.”

Perry the Bull, the lovable official mascot designed by Emma Lou. (Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games pic)

The organisers said Perry, a bull adorned with multi-coloured hexagons, symbolises the coming together of the Commonwealth in equal partnership with the diverse communities of Birmingham and the West Midlands.

President of Commonwealth Games England, Denise Lewis, said she knew children’s imagination would produce an “inspiring and unique mascot” like Perry when she helped to launch the mascot competition last year.

Lewis, who was the women’s heptathlon gold medallist at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, said she has competed at numerous major championships over the years and mascots always played a huge part in entertaining the crowds and getting everyone excited.

The biggest sports event to be held in the UK for a decade, the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games will be watched by a global audience of more than one billion people.

England last hosted the Games in Manchester in 2002. Glasgow in Scotland was the host in 2014. - FMT