PYONGYANG, North Korea – Amidst the global celebration of the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un staged an athletic competition in his own country this week, consisting of several events tied to a sport he calls “Ice Basketball Dancing.”
A video of the newly invented sport shows a unitard-clad Kim struggling to stay upright on ice skates as he tries to perform various basketball tricks. An official close to the North Korean leader said Kim recently became infatuated with figure skating after watching the Sochi Olympics and demanded his own event.
“He’s the only, um, ‘athlete,’ in the games, and once we brought the hoop down to eye level, it sort of worked,” said the official.
In the first year of the Ice Basketball dancing event, Kim won all three gold medals in the “swan dunk contest,” “three-pointer long program,” which was set to “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince, and freestyle dribbling, which proved the most elusive. “We went through four different balls in the dribble event because he kept tripping and puncturing them with his skates,” said the official who asked not to be named due to his constant fear of being executed.
Western observers of North Korea believe Kim’s Ice Basketball Dancing might be a reaction to the fact that no North Koreans athletes qualified for the Olympics. A new level of fear has also gripped the country since Kim executed Jang Song Taek, a top aide who was believed to be in favor of opening up the country’s economic system.
“The basketball on ice was quite funny, but I knew if I laughed my family would never see me again,” said one anonymous spectator who was forced from the street by police to attend and applaud Kim’s performance.
Kim did send two officials to the Sochi Games, including Supreme People’s Assembly Presidium President Kim Yong Nam, who met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Under Putin’s leadership, Russia has maintained a friendly relationship with North Korea since Kim Jong Un inherited control of the country’s government from his late father, Kim Jon Il.
“The great leader sends his good will to President Putin, and is excited to wear his red-sequined costume to their next horse riding expedition,” said Kim Yang Nam in Sochi. “The Lycra is very suitable for a long day of hunting,” he added.