Sochi
The Hare
The Leopard
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By Thomas Grove
MOSCOW | Mon Feb 28, 2011 9:14am EST
(Reuters) - The pudgy polar bear chosen as one of the mascots for the 2014 Sochi Olympics was at the center of a copyright row on Monday after the creator of the teddy bear from the 1980 Games said his ideas had been stolen.
Russians chose three mascots in a televised contest over the weekend, picking a cuddly hare, a snowboarding snow leopard and a polar bear as the faces of the 2014 Winter Games in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.
Claims of idea theft and political motives followed the vote with the creator of the smiling brown bear cub from the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics saying the polar bear was a copy of his mascot.
"It's exactly the same as mine: the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the smile, though it's askew," Viktor Chizhikov said on Ekho Moskvy radio.
"I don't like it when people steal, the author always feels it especially painfully."
