In 1980, 12 fewer nations showed up in Moscow than had appeared in Montreal four years earlier. The absence of many Western countries -- including the United States, which had earned 94 medals in 1976 -- ensured that the Olympics would not be a true test among the best athletes in the world. There were unintended effects to the boycott spearheaded by U.S. Jimmy Carter as well: it broke a sensitive bear's heart in two.

On September 25, 1974, a beaver was born. This wasn't just any beaver, it was the official mascot of the upcoming Montreal Olympic Games, announced and introduced to the world. Its name, Amik, was chosen via a public contest. Nobody ever figured out if Amik was male or female... but then again, nobody really asked the question.

A Canadian national symbol chosen for its industriousness and patience, the minimalist mascot was a product of Montreal's overall design concept, which was created by the Graphics and Design Directorate, a committee made up of prominent Canadian graphic artists of the time. The designers credited with the mascot's birth were Yvon Laroche, Pierre-Yves Pelletier, Guy St-Arnaud and George Huel.

One of my favorite Olympic items is my small plastic Waldi, a souvenir of the 1972 Munich Games. Waldi was the first Olympic mascot, and the first in an occasional 10-part series as we count down the animals, spirits and whatizits that have made the Games more fun. Then it'll be time for Beijing... where you'll see plenty of these folks.

Waldi was created by legendary German designer Otl Aicher (responsible for the Lufthansa logo, among others), whose work with the Munich 1972 organizing committee forged a new relationship between art and sport. The series of posters he created were instant classics, and the subject of an exhibition in London last year. Aicher did not live to see his work properly respected, unfortunately; he died at 69 years old in 1991, the victim of a lawnmower accident.

The Sulky Driver by Farpi Vignoli (ITA), gold medal in sculpture, Berlin 1936

To viewers at home, the Olympics are presented as an awkward sandwich indeed. There are 16 days of world-class competition between two ornate ceremonies, opening and closing, both of which overflow with extravagant, obscure and potentially superfluous imagery. In other words, art. In the Games' present televised form, it occasionally proves difficult to fathom the importance of native costumes, light shows, and sequined dancers in the Olympic context -- at least as anything other than expensive and frivolous entertainment.

There was a time, however, when art had a much more prominent and defined role every Olympiad. The founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, desired for the quadrennial event to be not only the world's preeminent sporting spectacle, but an important cultural one as well. Once the Olympic Movement had survived its rocky first decade (taking a back seat to World's Fairs in Paris and Saint Louis), Coubertin attempted to build on the Games' foundation and incorporate the arts. As he would write in a 1910 essay, "The first necessity was to revive them, and the second to shape them."

That shape manifested itself in Olympic art competitions. Coubertin's dream was to organize painting, sculpture and architecture events, the winners of which would receive the same gold medals as those given out for swimming, running and jumping. Competitors would be judged on their ability to capture the pure sporting ideal in their work. But unfortunately for the founder, the London 1908 organizing committee was nowhere near as amenable to this idea as he was.