NANJING - Nanjing, capital city of China's Jiangsu province, recently unveiled the mascot, named "cedar", for the World Athletics Indoor Championships.

The mascot's design concept comes from the cedar squirrel, a lively and invigorating creature, implying the energy and vigor of athletes attending the event.

The mascot's image was selected from the works of 827 candidates from around the world. The final image came from a pool of 72 cartoon characters drawn up by a design team and has undergone over 600 stages of fine tuning, and features a combination of elements of the host city, athletics and artistic design. The cedar tree is also the symbol of Nanjing city.

The World Athletics Indoor Championships is scheduled to last three days from March 3 to 5 in Nanjing, the host city of the 2014 Youth Olympic Games.