A couple of weeks late:
SOCHI, Russia — (TG) Russia has turned to a creative solution in its latest effort to eliminate the packs of wild dogs plaguing Sochi, the formerly quiet town that is hosting the Winter Olympics. In an announcement today, the Sochi organizing committee said a new biathlon event would allow a “sporting liquidation” of the dogs to solve the problem “once and for all.”
“We tried poison, but that wasn’t effective enough,” said committee boss Dmitry Chernyshenko. “Then we thought, like capitalist pig friends always say, ‘What better way to increase production than through spirited competition?’”
As a result, Sochi Olympians have a new biathlon event to compete in. The organizing committee is laying out a course that wends around the newly developed hotel infrastructure of Sochi, where dogs have become particularly problematic, either annoying tourists with incessant barking or disturbing them with the agonized death throes that usually follow their consumption of poisoned bait food.
Because Sochi’s subtropical clime means it is bereft of snow, competitors will don specially crafted roller skis to run the course. Rather than stopping at designated shooting areas, as is the practice in the traditional biathlon event that combines skiing with rifle shooting, athletes will be free to shoot any dog – or gypsy – they encounter along the course.
In a nod to Soviet-era battlefield heroics, athletes will compete with standard-issue Mosin-Nagant rifles, the model used by Soviet Hall of Fame sniper and Hero of the Soviet Union Vasily Zaytsev to gun down 400 German invaders at the Battle of Stalingrad.
Asked why gypsies are being included with dogs as targets in the biathlon, Chrnyshenko replied, “You’re right! We should add homosexuals too.”
Eager to eradicate the dogs as quickly as possible, organizers are hoping to begin the event by the middle of the week.
When asked if the U.S. would protest the barbaric new event, a spokesman for President Obama offered a reminder: “One must take a dialectic approach with the actions of our Russian friends and any country that may not share our morals. It’s never a question of ‘either or’ but of ‘both and’ when it comes to our values and their values.”
“The president loves his dog!” the spokesman added. “And gypsies, and gay folks. He especially loves gay gypsies!”
To date, only Iran and Russia have registered athletes in the new sport, but Chrynshenko was upbeat. “It means loser gets silver AND bronze!”