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The Maskot of the Athens ’99 World Weightlifting Championship

The power of the wave which can lift, in its anger,incredible weights, this is what the Hellenic Weightlifting Federation selected to be the mascot of the 70th Senior Men’s and 13th Senior Women’s World Championships and, it was given life by the pen of Mr P. Maragos, one of the most popylar sketchers in Creece. Everyone knows that Creece is surrounded by sea and hundreds of islands, spread all over it’s biggest area.Therefore, what could be better than the wave, to relate the organizing country with this world event ! The wave and it’s huge power will be the key-word for the 1999 event and may it be the foundation for the future glory and success of the sport, in the new century. So, the mascot was ready and, the next step for the Federation was to find the best possible characteristic logo of the event which was also realised in very short time by P. Maragos. All of us were aquainted to the idea and the only thing left, was the way : how we could express the whole route of weightlifting, as the 20th century passes by and the 21st begins. So, the world event’s logo is explained as follows: The base could be nothing eise than the famous Ancient Greek column with three hands raised to the sky, holding a barbell each, the symbol of the sport. One hand is holding the stone that our ancestors used to lift and, tht was really the very first form of the sport, the second hand holds the barbell used in competitions early in our century and, the third one is expression of modern ages.