OS 2014 - The Russian Snow Leopard

The Olympics are often dubbed the five ring circus, with its longstanding logo of five, multi-colored and overlapping rings, representing international unity, which have become synonymous with the global sporting event.

Yet each individual Olympic Games have unique icons that represent the host city and country. On Saturday February 26 Russian officials announced that the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics will be represented by a snowboarding snow leopard.

This means of course that Russia must be a land of Apple users since the latest operating system of Mac computers bears the same name. Alternatively the result could be the result of President Vladmir Putin's public support for the leopard, which he called "strong, powerful, fast and beautiful animal."

Chosen from a group of three finalists that included a polar bear and white snow hare, the snow leopard holds a snowboard and wears a bright-eyed grin of approval - presumably showing confidence in snowboarding's ever expanding global appeal as the king sport of the Winter Olympics.

The leopard was chosen via a Russian TV special that held a nationwide election using social networks, text messages and over 8000 phone calls.

The Snow Leopard gained 28% of the votes with the polar bear receiving 18%, and the white hare 16%, respectively.

Let's just hope the Russians don't kill the mountain-dwelling snow leopard with their avalanche management techniques.