“Obviously, if we’re going to do as well as we did in Beijing, we’re going to have to get some new disciplines that nobody else has any experience in included for 2012,” declared London Mayor and general buffoon Boris Johnson as he inspected the Olympic facilities currently under construction in preparation for the city’s hosting of the 2012 games. “For many years now I’ve been a champion of buttock skiing, for instance. It’s a real test of skill – and a cross gender team sport to boot.” The Old Etonian proceeded to describe, in detail, this ‘sport’ to a group of bemused journalists. “Now, it’s not what you might think – simply going down a slope on your arse would hardly make for a challenging sport, now would it? Besides, that sort of thing would be better suited to the Winter Olympics,” he chortled. “First of all, you need a woman with a set of big buttocks. Now, I know this sounds suspect, but believe me, research has shown that female buttocks are best for this. The possessor of the buttocks must lie, bare arsed and face down, on the floor. The skier (who can be of either gender), should then smear the buttocks with salad cream, before mounting them in bare feet – one foot on each cheek.” The mayor then proceeded to demonstrate, with the reluctant assistance of female reporter from the Daily Mail, how, whilst grasping a coat hanger attached to a piece of string and held taught by being tied to a door knob, (although, for the purposes of the demonstration, the string was held taught by an aide), the skier would try to stay on the greased buttocks. “Slipping off results in elimination, of course,” he explained, as he lost his footing, landing squarely on his own backside. “As you can see, it takes more skill than you might suspect to stay on those wobbly mounds.” Johnson added, as the assembled journalists looked on, open mouthed in astonishment, that for the best results, he’d always found that an electric fan should be set up to blow at the skier’s face, thereby completing the illusion of water skiing. Despite leaving journalists and Olympic officials stunned by his buttock skiing suggestion, the mayor wasn’t finished with his proposals for new events. “Horse pummelling, that’s another idea I’ve had – had visions of chaps in gym kit beating up horses,” he rambled, as aides tried to usher him away from the television cameras. “Obviously, they’d start with ponies in the heats, before working up to full-size horses in the semi-finals. Perhaps the final could consist of four chaps having to give a bloody good hiding to a series of successively larger horses, with gold going to whoever could take down a shire horse.”
Olympic officials have been quick to try and pour cold water on Johnson’s bizarre proposals, pointing out that, with the next games only two years away, it is far too late to introduce any new events. “Besides, the host country can’t just make up new sports that only it plays, just to try and guarantee themselves some gold medals. It goes completely against the Olympic ethos,” declares Juan Arsole of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). “To be considered for inclusion, a sport has to be shown to be well-established and to be widely played. I hardly think that sliding around on women’s buttocks or beating up horses can claim to be either of those things.” However, the Mayor’s idea has received support in some quarters, with right wing Tory MP Quentin Firker echoing his calls for the addition of new, ‘more relevant’ sports to the line up of the 2012 games. “The IOC is talking complete nonsense – how else can they explain the presence of baseball as an Olympic sport for so many years, other than to provide the USA with a guaranteed gold medal? I mean, who the Hell else plays it?” he asks. Firker agrees with Boris Johnson that the only way for Great Britain to be able to match the magnificent level of Olympic achievement seen in Beijing, is through lateral thinking. “We really need to start thinking about how we can encourage today’s youth to participate in sports by introducing disciplines in which they can utilise their existing skills,” he says. “Consequently, I firmly believe that knife-fighting should also be included as an exhibition sport in 2012. After all, they had bloody BMX biking as an event last time – that’s the same sort of urban hoodie activity, isn’t it?” Whilst it might seem surprising that Firker – a strong advocate of law and order – should appear to be encouraging knife crime, the Tory backbencher is adamant that his proposal would actually help to reduce knife-related fatalities. “By making it a sport, we can take it off of the streets,” he insists. “We can show these young people that they can harness their obvious psychopathic skills to more constructive ends than murder. Obviously, Olympic knife fighting would be non-fatal sport, like fencing, with protective gear and the like.”
In addition to creating new disciplines, Firker believes that the IOC should also look at modernising some of the existing sports for the London games, in order to make them seem more relevant to today’s young people. “Take shooting, for instance. All that blasting away with shotguns at clay pigeons means nothing to modern kids,” he opines. “Now, if they were to introduce a new shooting event – the drive-by – I think we’d see participation levels go through the roof. A team activity where half a dozen shooters have to hit targets from a moving car, firing Ingrams Mac 10 machine pistols, I think we’d be guaranteed a Gold medal.” Shooting isn’t the only discipline which Firker believes could be revitalised by being made to be more ‘street’. “ I really must say that I was very disappointed at the UK’s lack of medals in the archery events at Beijing,” he sighs. “Even the French did better than us. The French, for God’s sake! It really makes a mockery of Agincourt! Not to mention Robin Hood. Whatever happened to the good old days when all able-bodied Englishmen had to do archery practice every Sunday? Maybe that’s the trouble – its become too elitist. Maybe we need to encourage more working class participation, not to mention getting young people interested in the sport. I was thinking that perhaps we could encourage the use of longbows by gangs, instead of guns. A spate of drive-by archery attacks might be just what we need to revitalise the sport.” Nonetheless, even Firker concedes that some events could be difficult to modernise to Britain’s advantage. “I think we have to forget track and field events,” he laments. “Unless, of course, we can persuade the IOC to introduce a new version of the sprint where competitors have to carry a TV set for 200m without being caught by the police.” When asked for its reaction to Firker’s comments, the IOC merely re-iterated its earlier position, that no new events were under consideration for the 2012 London Olympics.
