French artiste whips up wombat piece de resistance

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Sydney: A French chocolatier has guaranteed that Olympic anti-mascot Fatso, the wide-bummed wombat, stays on the tip of everyone's tongue.

It took three days for Jean-Michel Raynaud to turn a 45-kg (99-lb) block of chocolate into Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat.

Raynaud, who runs one of the most upscale patisseries in Sydney's eastern suburbs, has temporarily left his day job to carve chocolate for charity during the Olympics.

"This rebel Australian icon called Fatso has been lovingly carved by a very gifted French chocolatier," Tim Stanford, marketing director for Cadbury Confectionery, told Reuters.

Cadbury has contracted Raynaud to carve official Olympic mascots Syd the platypus, Millie the spiny anteater and Olly the kookaburra and to oversee the creation of chocolate impressions of athletes' hands and feet.

The items are to be auctioned on Saturday for Olympic Aid, an umbrella charity of various organisations for refugees worldwide and for poor children in Australia.

Stanford said the charity hopes triple Olympic champion swimmer Ian Thorpe will dip his size 17 feet in chocolate.

"Ian Thorpe's feet would be an absolute cracker," he said.

Raynaud's chocolate Fatso appeared on Monday on late-night television programme "The Dream", a satirical spin on the Games hosted by Australian comedy duo Roy Slaven and H G Nelson.

The irreverent, late-night look at the day's competition has turned the pair, known as Roy and H G, into cult figures.

Fatso is becoming an icon. The tubby cartoon wombat walks across the television screen during replays of less than stellar Olympic moments, leaving three tiny droppings in his wake.

Roy and H G proudly showed the chocolate wombat to millions of television viewers, then the cameras zoomed in on the trademark three droppings.

"Roy and H G must have added those," a charity spokeswoman told Reuters.