Fatso the wombat stealing the show in Sydney

As the Sydney Games near their end, the big question facing Australia's Olympic officials is not whether the home team will meet its target of 60 medals.

It is what to do about a stuffed wombat with an outsized posterior that is threatening to upstage the official Olympic mascot, a boxing kangaroo.

Fatso the Wombat is an animated creature invented by The Dream, a nightly satirical television programme about the Games.

Fatso waddles across the screen, depositing droppings, during replays of unremarkable Games moments.

So popular has Fatso become that the Australian Olympic Committee has reportedly banned their athletes from appearing in public with models of him, after swimmers such as Michael Klim and Susie O'Neill waved him at television cameras from their medal podiums last week.

The AOC, which have bought the rights to the boxing kangaroo, are said to be concerned that the furry wombat could jeopardise sales of official merchandise.

Fatso's fame has spread far and wide, with one French chocolatier, Jean-Michel Raynaud, constructing an enormous model of him to auction for charity.

Raynaud, who runs an upmarket Sydney patisserie, took three days to carve him in all his glory from a 99lb block of chocolate.

So delicate is l'affaire Fatso that one AOC official, Peter Montgomery, declined to comment on the question of a ban.

"It's a matter of some commercial sensitivity," he said.

The International Olympic Committee director-general, François Carrard, was also tight-lipped. "I'm not aware of banning Fatso," he said.

The Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, have their own mascots to protect: Syd the platypus, Millie the anteater and Olly the kookaburra.

Asked about Fatso, Klim said: "To be honest, I didn't understand its significance. I just thought it was a wombat..."

- INDEPENDENT