2014 Olympic Mascot Candidates Include Santa Claus And The Sun?

Three years out from the Winter Olympics in Sochi, it's time to start talking intangibles, and our friends at Fourth-Place Medal have an exhaustive ranking of the proposed mascots for the games. In a startling departure from past years, several of the candidates are actually identifiable creatures. Never fear, though; this is still the Olympics and the pool isn't without the requisite left-field creations. Our picks for hits and misses:

The Good
• The Bullfinch. Reminiscent of Twitter, which will make for easy Fail Whale jokes if complications arise in getting the sites ready.
• Snowflake. Will animate nicely on television and not likely to frighten children. These are qualities not to be underestimated in a mascot.
• The Dolphin. It's a dolphin on snow skis. Your argument is invalid.
• Matryoshka! Nesting dolls are an inspired choice. There ought to be five of them, though, to correspond to the rings, right?

The Bad
• Santa Claus. Wait, what? The Winter Olympics are in February, so it's not like his busy, but ...
• Fire Boy. Seems like wishful thinking for the environment these games are going to be taking place in.
• The Leopard, the Bunny, the Polar Bear and the Brown Bear. Completely nondescript, utterly forgettable, and at least two of them look like title characters in furry fan fiction.

The Hell?
• The Sun. No, seriously, it's just the Sun with pigtails. It's entirely nonsensical and thus must be the frontrunner. See you in Sochi, cutieface!