Ireland to Host Winter Olympics in Summer

19th Feb 2014

On the back of setting up a widely publicised campaign to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup in Ireland the People’s Republic of Cork has learned, from a well-placed source, that the Minister for Sport and Tourism Leo Varadkar may be about to launch a new campaign group to add Ireland to the list of countries vying to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Having seen the spectacle of this year’s games in Sochi, Russia the Winter Olympics is considered to be one of the must-have events for countries before the arrival of Judgement Day and The Great Flood - fears of which are currently rife in Ireland with catastrophic flooding, rain, damp, sleet and mist.
 

Wha-hey boy!

Each country applying to host the games must highlight a unique aspect of their bid – something that no other state would be capable of doing. Ireland has one undoubted advantage over other countries when it comes to hosting large scale events and this will be added to the application:

The lobbying group will use Ireland’s ability to host the Winter Games in the middle of summer as the bid’s unique selling point.

“Many Olympians have very limited training times in their own countries because winter only lasts for a few months”, said group leader and meteorologist David Waterman, “whereas in Ireland it’s pretty much winter all year round so we should be using this to our advantage to attract these elite athletes to Ireland”.
 

He thought he was the man until he met his match in Merchant's Quay

It is hoped that pin-up weather girls Jean Byrne and Joan Blackburn will become the public faces of the campaign.

“The girls have told me that they get a lot of flak for announcing relentless bad weather especially during summer”, said their nail technician Colette Clownpants, “so the Winter Olympics bid might turn the tables and get Irish people praying for bad weather instead”.

While much of the winter Olympics centres on events that involve freezing water:, namely snow and ice, Ireland’s bid will focus on the another common characteristics of winter in many countries: rain.
 

With extreme flooding street kayaking is likely to be one of the headline events that will hopefully raise eyebrows among those assessing applications to host the games.

Most canoeing and kayaking competitions have to be held in the countryside where to viewers on TV one country looks the same as the next however Cork will be uniquely placed to host the first ever Urban Street Kayaking Championships and courses will also take Olympian paddlers indoors through shoe shops, shopping centres and furniture stores.

A 'dry run' for the 2022 Winter Olympics

The ‘Welly Run’ is also being touted as a major highlight and athletes from the summer Olympics will be invited to sex-up the often heavily clothed Championhips. Footage of Usain Bolt powering down a heavily flooded Patrick Street and Grand Parade in a pair of knee high rubber wellies would bring a new exciting twist to the Winter games.  

“We need to turn this never-ending rain to the advantage of our economy”, said Raymond Foggybottom, CEO of bid sponsors ‘Soft Day Umbrellas’, “tourists are much more likely to travel in the summer months when their kids are off school for long periods and not in the depths of winter.”

“Ireland will attract a crowd ten times the size of that in Sochi”, he continued, “and we’ve as many more gay athletes these days as straight ones so it’ll also hopefully be the gayest Olympics to date – sure, we’ve even got a town in Kerry called Camp!”.

The new ski slope being built at The Glen is just one of many downhill slaloms being quietly added to the country’s infrastructure in preparation for the bid with city authorities also hopeful that Patrick’s Hill, (officially Ireland’s hilliest hill) will be used for some of the more treacherous events.

“We might be short on snow in Cork but we’ve got an army of ice-cream vans ready to roll up and pump the hills around Cork full of ice and snow to meet the requirements of the Winter Olympic council”, said a source.
 

99 bobbila?

A bonus side benefit for competitors in the Alpine Skiing event will be being accompanied by musical classics such as Yanky Doodle Dandy, Greensleeves and the old ‘Match of the Day’ tune as they descend the slope – and if their times are good there’ll be a 99 and flake waiting for them when they reach the bottom of Patrick’s Hill.