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World Champion Hot Dog Eater trophy returns to Brooklyn soil
Rachel Markowitz | July 6, 2007
Between Coney Island’s impending renovations, champion Takeru Kobayashi’s reported jaw injury, and contender Joey Chestnut’s new world record of 59.5 hot dogs, this was THE year to attend the annual Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest.
By 11:30 am I had wolfed down a corn dog smothered with mustard and waited anxiously as the competitors were introduced. Aside from Kobayashi and Chestnut, competitors included pig’s feet eating champion of the world Arturo Rios, a mohawked Pat Bertoletti who holds the world record for shoofly pie eating, and Tim “Eater X” Janus who many of you may have seen on MTV True Life: I’m a Competitive Eater.
This year’s pool of contenders included two women. Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas, who got her nickname from her, “desire to eliminate the males.” At 100 lbs she has eaten 65 hard-boiled eggs in under seven minutes, and 46 dozen (552) oysters in ten minutes. Newcomer Juliet Lee only started eating competitively a year ago, making her professional debut in a meatball-eating competition where she ate 5.52 lbs of meatballs in twelve minutes. Both women are surprisingly cute and their physiques made me more than a little jealous.
Around 12:40 pm, after ESPN got in all their live “before” interviews, the competition began. I’m pretty short, so I had to do the human pogo stick to see anything, but the energy of the crowd and the humor of the announcer kept it exciting. Commenting on Kobayashi’s ability to put away so many hot dogs, he said “It’s fun, but it’s sad at the same time. Like that David Bowie song. It’s fun until you realize that Major Tom is not coming home.” Joey Chestnut ate ten hot dogs in the first 50 seconds. And then Kobayashi overtook him.
The competition continued back and forth for all twelve minutes. Kobayashi and Chestnut neck-and-neck, until the very end where they had both seemingly finished at 63 hot dogs. We wondered about the possibility of a tie-breaker. Would they up the stakes, make them put chili-cheese on the dogs? After a minute or so, the results were in: in second place, Kobayashi at 63 hot dogs. In first place, Chestnut at 66. Both men broke their own records as well as setting new world records.
So the World Champion Hot Dog Eater trophy has returned to American soil. But should we be proud?
Comments
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Yes, we should be proud! The hot dog eating contest at Coney Island is as American as homemade apple pies, roller skates, and the Playboy Mansion. Plus everyone knows that Kobayashi has had a titanium stomach inserted in his person by the Japanese government. And here we thought that Barry Bonds and Balco were the problem.
Either way, nicely done Josh!