The Summer Olympics: We've Made A Few ... Changes

Every four years we lose valuable column inches  and air time to the underwhelming events that comprise the summer Olympics. We're going to get an even heftier sensory raping this time around because our neighbours to the east are hosting it. Oh happy day!

If it's not obvious to you already I have a few problems with the Olympics. First of all, it receives an obscene amount of media coverage. It's not verging on the ridiculous, it is the epitome of ridiculousness. It seems like Sky Sports News have had a "Countdown to London 2012" timer since before it was even announced that they'd be hosting it. "Only 756 days left until London 2012 and there is an air of 'who gives a shit' around the city." For anyone who disagrees with me and thinks the Olympics receives an appropriate level of media coverage, Google "Fast Girls".

For the most part, the actual events are as boring as a Coldplay CD. Sure it's fun watching Usain Bolt smash the world record in the 100 metres but that race only lasts about ten seconds, max. Oddly enough, it's getting shorter every games. In the meantime we have to put up with all the dull heats and semi finals, and this is for a sport that is actually exciting.

However, there are other sports in the games. Watching such sports will leave you as bored as Fritzl's daughter. There is no need to have any coverage of events such as archery, gymnastics, fencing, sailing, equestrian, badminton, cycling and hockey. Nobody gives a flying fuck about these events unless their country has a chance of winning a medal. There is something seriously wrong with something that makes football and guns boring. Come on Olympics, that shit's easy.

It could really do with taking a leaf out of the Grand National. Imagine how much more exciting it would be if two athletes died during each event. Someone told me that this was the plot of The Hunger Games which apparently, isn't a sort of Olympics for bulimics.

Kid's nowadays have the attention span of Jedward on speed. They're chatting with they're other halves on Bebo, checking the latest  cinema listings on their teletext apps for their Gameboys and listening to the latest PJ and Duncan single on their Walkmen. They no longer find these tired old sports exciting. We need to get with the times. We have the obligation to make the Olympics more sexy and I'm not referring to the sexualisation of female athletes because if we were being totally honest here, they're sixes, at best.

I propose that we create new, exciting events to get the youth interested in the Olympics again. I've outlined some ideas below. By the way for all these events the starter pistol will be replaced with a Kalashnikov firing actual bullets, at fans. If there's one thing the Brits did right it was livening up a Gaelic Football match.

1) Mario Karting - Let's bring this video game beloved by all to life. Obviously bananas will be banned. Imagine flinging bananas out of your kart at other drivers. We wouldn't want to give the impression that it's a sport participated by a bunch of John Terrys. There will still be all the fun stuff though. You'll get to hurl turtles at your opponents, take magic mushrooms and apes, monkeys and even dragons will be allowed to participate. Now that's equality.

2) Alcoholic Boxing - You've heard of punch drunk but how about drunk punch drunk? This sport will encapsulate what us Irish are all about, drinkin' and fightin'. Even James Joyce jumped a few lads in nightclubs while he was shteamed. Who knows, we may even win a gold medal out of it. The rules are simple enough. You kneck spirits in between rounds and the alcohol percentage increases after each round. So you start off on a weak whisky and by round 5 or 6, you're on Raki or Absinthe. The beauty of this sport is you can reuse a lot of the equipment. For example the spit buckets become vomit buckets and the corner men can supply the boxers with kebabs instead of smelling salts. Scoring will be based on punches connected and dignity maintained.

3) The Charlie Sheen Obstacle Course - It's a 80 metre dash (100 metres has been done to death) with a difference. After the starter Kalashnikov kills seven people in Row D, each athlete must snort a line of coke from the cleavage of a prostitute, suck MDMA out of her navel and proceed to have coital relations with her until completion before commencing the sprint... or stagger. The athlete puts on a beer hat (the beer is replaced with Tiger blood) and runs down the track avoiding Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen holding admittance forms for the Betty Ford Clinic. The first athlete to cross the finish line and hit a button which plays an unnecessary 'Two And A Half Men' style laugh track wins.

Wouldn't these events be a vast improvement on dressage? That question isn't rhetorical. The answer is a definite and resounding "fuckin' a".