Many Chinese are queuing in front of official stores to buy the small mammal.

And some are now ready to pay, on the black market, much more than the normal price of 200 yuan (28 euros)...

A success that the head of the design team behind Bing Dwen Dwen (pronounced Bing Doune Doune), Cao Xue, had not anticipated.

"With the opening of the Olympics, I obviously expected people to buy it, but not for it to become so popular overnight," he told AFP.

"It has become a phenomenon."

"For each of the 14 stylists, we kept one as a souvenir (...) In recent days, we say to ourselves that we should perhaps have kept a little more!", He jokes, in reference to his now endangered panda.

The start of the Olympics on February 4 coincided with the Lunar New Year holiday, when almost all of the country's factories were shut down.

Result: out of stock in the shops.

Taking advantage of the shortage, some tried to resell the toy for ten times more.

Police have also warned of online scams, where sellers disappear after pocketing the money.

In ravioli version

During the design of the mascot, the brainstorming was intense and the various creations were glued from floor to ceiling in the workshop, recalls Cao Xue.

Olympic mascot Bing Dwen Dwen sits next to Paralympian Shuey Rhon Rhon in a shop in Beijing, February 9, 2022 NOEL CELIS AFP

"We drew tens of thousands of sketches, spent seven months designing and modifying all that. For a while, we even gave up on the idea of ​​having a panda. Because there were already so many panda models in the past...", he recalls.

The panda only lives in the wild in China, where it has become a national symbol.

The authorities have been making effective efforts for several decades to save him from disappearance.

"In the end, both for our team and the organizing committee of the Games, we thought that a panda was the best possible choice", notes Mr. Cao, professor at the Academy of Fine Arts of Canton (south).

The final version is a smiling panda, placed in a sort of see-through, ice-like astronaut costume... or protective suit, useful in times of pandemic.

On the internet, the enthusiasm is such that some share videos of mascots, ravioli or rice cakes bearing the image of Bing Dwen Dwen, which they have made themselves at home.

An employee threads packages into a box for the shipment of Bing Dwen Dwen mascots from the Nantong factory, February 8, 2022 STR AFP/Archives

Faced with demand, the organizers of the Olympic Games have promised to speed up production.

Chinese media have already aired reports showing workers working overtime in factories.

"When I see all these people in Beijing braving the cold for hours and queuing, it's not just to buy an inanimate toy," Cao Xue said.

"What they come to find is something to hold in their hands that gives them some warmth."

© 2022 AFP