Organisers started looking for a company to run a campaign to find a mascot that reflects the event being staged across regional Victoria. 

Victoria 2026 chief executive Jeroen Weimar confirmed the process would include sending staff into classrooms to ask children what they want as a symbol of the Games.

"Some of the best ideas for a mascot to represent the Victoria 2026 Commonwealth Games won’t come from a committee - they will come from a classroom," he said.

Previous mascots for Commonwealth Games in Australia have included a cartoon kangaroo called Matilda for Brisbane 1982, a red-tailed black cockatoo Karak for Melbourne 2006 and Borobi, a blue koala, with indigenous markings on its body, for Gold Coast 2018.

The mascot for last year's Commonwealth Games in Birmingham was Perry, a multi-coloured bull named after an area of the city, Perry Barr, within which the main athletics stadium was located.

The search is also on for a firm to build a giant Games countdown clock.

It would most likely be installed at Southern Cross Station in Melbourne’s Central Business District as a symbolic departure point for the Victorian regional centres where the Games are to be staged - Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton and Gippsland.

"The mascot, the countdown clock and our public events in the lead-up will be the first tangible things that many Victorians will experience about the biggest event ever held in regional Victoria," Weimar said.

The countdown clock is due to be unveiled on March 17 in 2024 to mark two years until the Opening Ceremony, with different locations and designs currently being considered.

A total of 20 sports will compete at 25 venues at the Games, with the Victorian Government estimating they will contribute more than AUD$3 billion (£1.6 billion/$2 billion/€1.8 billion) to the state economy.