Dynamic duo unveiled as Olympic mascots

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 pupils to think of them as "good friends".

But the duo, created for the digital age, is also a key money-spinner for London 2012 which must raise 2bn from the private sector to stage the Games. The mascots will appear on everything from toys to mugs when they go on sale for the two-year countdown to the start of the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.