Dynamic duo unveiled as London 2012 mascots

Two alien-like creatures called Mandeville and Wenlock have been unveiled as mascots for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Going all-out for child appeal, London 2012 organisers created a cartoon and signed up best-selling children's writer Michael Morpurgo to build a background story for the abstract characters.

Children from St Paul's Whitechapel Primary School in the east London Olympic borough were the first members of the public to see the duo in action.

London 2012 chairman Lord Coe led a special assembly in the school hall and told the youngsters to think of them as "good friends".

But the dynamic duo, created for the digital age, are also a key money-spinner for London 2012 which must raise £2 billion from the private sector to stage the Games.

London 2012 said it cost "a few thousand pounds" to create the designs but would not release a figure.

Wenlock and Mandeville will appear on everything from toys to mugs when the mascots go on sale from this year's two-year countdown to the start of the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.

According to the story - called Out of the Rainbow - Wenlock and Mandeville were crafted by a character called Grandpa George from the last drops of steel used to build the Olympic Stadium.

The cartoon shows Wenlock and Mandeville striking poses like sprinter Usain Bolt's bow and arrow, copying diver Tom Daley and trying a split-jump like world champion gymnast Beth Tweddle.

London 2012, who continue to stress its aim is to engage youngsters in sport, plumped for the abstract shapes when children who made up various focus groups said they were not interested in a human or animal mascot.

The mascots' single eye is a camera, which will capture the people they meet, the places they go and the sports they try on their journey to 2012.

Wenlock and Mandeville come complete with their own Twitter and Facebook sites plus their own website at www.london2012.com/mascots.

Schoolchildren are being asked to come up with interesting reasons for the mascots to visit their school. The most interesting invites will determine the route across Britain the mascots will take in the run-up to the 2012 Games.

The pair are also to be deployed as an educational tool to help teach children about different sports or possibly outline the route of the torch relay.

The mascots' names hark back to Britain's Olympic and Paralympic history.

Wenlock is named after the Shropshire village of Much Wenlock. It is where the Wenlock Games was one of the inspirations for Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic movement, to create the Olympics.

Mandeville's name is inspired by Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire.

Dr Ludwig Guttmann went to Stoke Mandeville Hospital to set up a new spinal unit to help former soldiers suffering from spinal cord injuries in the 1940s.

Looking for ways to inspire those in his care, he encouraged them to take up sport, leading to the formation of the Stoke Mandeville Games, widely recognised as a forerunner of the modern Paralympic movement.