The true face of World Cup mascot Slapy

What many people don't know: "Slapy" was already the World Cup mascot in Bolzano in 1994, where he mingled with the audience, danced and jumped with the fans in the stands and slid across the ice. The name of the “Giant Snow Hare” was chosen after a competition in South Tyrol’s middle schools, with “Slapy” narrowly beating “Flocky” out of 1800 name suggestions. The “godmother” of “Slapy” was Kathrin Trebo from Olang, who suggested the very original name and won the competition. The mascot was designed by Robert Mendini and Barbara Innerhofer from the Tappeiner advertising studio in Lana. Norbert Schramm implemented the drawings. The former German figure skating star, who was responsible for the Munich World Cup mascot “Bully” a year earlier, tailored “Slapy” back then. Who is hiding under the costume? 30 years ago, the mascot even made it onto phone cards worth 2000 lire (one euro) that were made especially for the World Cup. These were particularly sought after by collectors and provided a useful service at the numerous public telephone boxes that no longer exists today and that no child knows about. At that time, 4 costumes were made at a cost of 4 million lire (around 2000 euros) per piece: 3 for the venues in Bolzano, Milan and Alba di Canazei and one as a reserve. Eight men in their prime were “hiding” underneath. One of them was Christian Mader. He also gave “Slapy” the character and inner life. The mascot had to be sports-loving, playful, clumsy, international, always hungry and funny. It also had to be a scaredy-cat and a fat one. Mader also worked out the movement techniques and taught them to his colleagues. “The mascot should move roughly the same in all 3 stages. I could ice skate. That was a big advantage,” remembers Mader, pointing out that he had between 60 and 70 missions in the bunny costume at the time. In the ice wave, he and Hannes Peintner, who put on the reserve costume, put on a show in the stands during individual games. Today as then And 30 years later, Mader puts on the rabbit fur and puts on the head, which weighs almost 4 kilograms, with the protruding ears and the conspicuous incisors. “Today I enjoy it even more than I did 30 years ago. “I’m an old hand now,” smiles Mader, who is also known as “Clown Tino” or magician “Chrys Magic” and is celebrating his 14th birthday on May 64th. He is a different person in the role of “Slapy”. Not much has changed for him in 30 years. And yet there are differences. “As you get older, you get smarter. 30 years ago I compensated for the large loss of fluids with beer. Today I'm doing it with water. When I'm in the costume, I hope it stays that way forever. But as soon as I took the rabbit head off, I'm glad it's over. After 3 hours I'm pretty exhausted: I'm sweating and I feel pain in my shoulders," explains Mader, who keeps fit by cycling. By the way, Christian Rottensteiner had the idea to bring “Slapy” back to life. He is an acquaintance of Doris Lintner. The World Cup general secretary has passed her baptism of fire and will probably continue in this role at the Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina in just under 2 years. Whether “Slapy” will also be there is still up in the air at the moment.

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The true face of World Cup mascot Slapy

There has been a lot of excitement in the stands of the Sparkasse Arena over the past few days. “Slapy,” among others, set the mood. The ice hockey-playing snow bunny is the mascot of these title fights and really heated up the fans.

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