2014 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games mascots and Leopard) was lacking personality. As a result of these issues, as well as being denied the copyright to Misha, Chizhikov declined to help when asked by the organizers of the 2014 Winter Olympics closing ceremony. Zoich (or ZOIЧ) was a proposed mascot for the XXII Winter Olympics, which took first place in the official online poll to select a mascot for the 2014 Sochi games. Despite being a popular Internet character, the committee chose not to introduce it to the final round of the voting. Upon introduction and until the end of the online voting, it was the most
Independent Olympic Athletes at the 2017 Asian Winter Games Independent Olympic Athletes at the 2017 Asian Winter Games Independent Olympic Athletes are scheduled to compete in the 2017 Asian Winter Games in Sapporo and Obihiro, Japan from February 19 to 26. The team is scheduled to compete in one sport: ice hockey, and consists of 23 athletes. The Kuwait Olympic Committee was suspended in October 2015, due to political interference. Therefore, the country is scheduled to compete under the Olympic flag as "Independent Olympic Athletes". The following table lists the delegation per sport and gender. The Independent Olympic Athletes are scheduled to compete in division 2 of the men's