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08th Jan 2014

Huge surprise as Rodman-trained North Korean team beats team of former NBA All-Stars in basketball exhibition

There were no cameras around to record footage of the game, of course, but who are we to be sceptical about the result?

Conor Heneghan

There were no cameras around to record footage of the game, of course, but who are we to be sceptical about the result?

You might have thought that a team containing former NBA All-Stars Kenny Anderson, Cliff Robinson and (four-time All-Star) Vin Baker would have enough about them (even though all of them are well in their 40s) to see off the challenge of a North Korean outfit in Pyongyang a little earlier today but, it seems, like the best sporting stories, the underdogs triumphed in the end.

NK News – who describe themselves The Internet’s No.1 source for breaking North Korea News – are reporting today that the Dennis Rodman trained North Korean triumphed over their illustrious opponents in a game that was attended by North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un on the day of his 30th birthday (at least we think it was his birthday and we think he’s 30, nobody seems quite sure).

Because nobody attending the game was allowed to bring cameras in – as is the case at every public event attended by the Supreme Leader – NK news were reliant on information provided by Simon Cockerell, a tour guide with the Beijing-based Koryo Tours, who informed NK News of the result by Skype from Pyongyang.

The source, it must be said, does not sound incredibly reliable and this could well be a hoax similar to the story about Kim Jong Un’s disgraced uncle being executed by a pack of dogs, but we’re sure Matt Cooper can verify the result when he returns from his North Korean trip (he can be spotted lurking in the background of the picture at the top of the page).

It should be said that this result pales in comparison to the sporting feats of Kim Jong Un’s father Kim Jong-il, who amongst other achievements, shot 11 hole-in-ones and 38-under par in his first and only ever game of golf, recorded a perfect score of 300 in his first ever game of bowling and offered tactical advice to the coach of the North Korean team during the 2010 World Cup via an invisible mobile phone that he invented and built himself.

Kim Jong-Un has a long way to go then, but he’s only a young gasúr yet.

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