The Atlanta Journal Constitution has a short preview of Sunday’s Waffle House World Waffle Eating Championship. The contest will be 10 minutes long. Sonya Thomas is the only listed expected entrant.

With $5,000 for first place, it might make financial sense for Kobayashi to put the “world” in World Waffle Eating Championship, as that prize could pay for a transpacific flight and have a considerable amount left over.

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The Des Moines Regsister has a very nice profile of Rich and Carlene LeFevre focusing on their appearance at the August 21 Smoked Pork Championships in Council Bluffs.

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The Buffalo Wing Festival has the expected entrants list for Saturday’s Buffalo wing contest. Most of the top IFOCE members from the northeast will attend, but Joe LaRue is the only competitor listed from outside that region. I am not sure if that is the final list or if other eaters might show up. No information is available about Sunday’s buffet contest, but I assume that some gurgitators will hang around for that event. Brian Subich is back from a two week hiatus with additional information about the wing contest.

Sonya Thomas appears to have a quite stern challenge preserving her almost seven-month non-Kobayashi winning streak this holiday weekend when she competes in three contests in three different cities. First she will match up with Tim Janus coming off a record smashing performance in grilled cheese along with a resurgent Cookie Jarvis in Buffalo and then face a rested Joey Chestnut in waffles in Atlanta Sunday. On labor day in Chattanooga she will face off with Joey Chestnut again in the Krystal burger qualifier.

(Thanks Sonya for the website compliment on sonyatheblackwidow.com)

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I hope that everyone in the southern half of the central time zone came through Katrina as well as possible. It is hard to believe that damage was less than originally expected when seeing the all images of devastation.

Updated Aug 31 12:39 am If the first day was slightly better than expected, the second and subsequent days appear to be much much worse. My prayers go out to everyone affected by this catastrophe.

Here is a much happier instance of another force of nature visiting Louisiana from earlier this year.

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The Lincoln Journal Star has a full article on the grilled cheese contest at the Nebraska State Fair. It mentions that Tim Janus often ate two sandwiches at a time after soaking them in Key Lime flavored carbonated water.

Omahans Alicia Garcia and Nikki Sanders consumed 10 and 9 sandwiches respectively, totals close to the winning Sturgis result of 11.75 sandwiches. Hopefully their feeling sick after the contest will not prevent them from entering future competitions.

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At the Nebraska State Fair in Lincoln, Tim “Eater X” Janus wins with a record smashing performance of 31 sandwiches. This destroys Sonya Thomas’ record of 25 set earlier this year and is the best mark so far on the Grilled Cheese circuit by almost 10. Sonya has already changed her number of records on sonyatheblackwidow.com to 25 from 26, a very classy move. Sonya might regret advising Tim Janus at the US Open that he needed to improve his stomach capacity.

From omaha.com (registration required so I will just quote the relevant part)

STATE FAIR PARK – How do you eat 31 grilled-cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes?

Dip them in water and wash them down with soda, which dissolves the bread, according to Tim “Eater X” Janus, a New York City stock broker and the No. 7-ranked speed eater in the world.

Janus, 26, established what is apparently a world record for downing grilled cheese at the fair Saturday. He qualified for the national championship in October.

About 250 people witnessed the spectacle.

Eater X, who donned face paint to psych out a dozen local rivals, said another trick is to eat big meals to stretch out your stomach.

Mike Nafziger, a chef from Fremont, placed a distant second with 14 sandwiches. Jason Smith of Bellevue finished third with 131/2 sandwiches.

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The Fremont Tribune has a preview of Saturday’s Grilled Cheese contest at the Nebraska State Fair, focusing on Mike Nafziger, who finished 5th at last Sunday’s smoked pork contest. It does not mention if any top ranked IFOCE members are expected. It also says that the grilled cheese finals will be held in Los Angeles.

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The San Jose Mercury News did not think very highly of Carlene LeFevre’s appearance at the US Open of Competitive Eating:

Morning Buzz thought the network [ESPN] reached a new low when it showed the grandma in the spaghetti-eating competition of the World Series of Competitive Eating.

I would place all the shouting sportswriters, reality dross like Dream Job and poker (can the World Series of Slot Machines be far behind?) on ESPN way below a “grandma” who has reached the top 10 of a physically demanding field of competition.

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Three days after the cancelled Nathan’s qualifier, the Saratoga Race Cource holds a (non IFOCE/AICE) ice cream contest. It seems like it would have made sense to hold the Nathan’s qualifer in conjunction with the ice cream contest on Wednesday and avoid the conflicts with all the August 21 contests.

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Phillyburbs.com has an article about the NJ Pizza contest. As usual for many newspaper articles, it focuses on a local who finishes out of the top spots.

Thanks Bob Shoudt for the link.

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The Golden Palace website has a page on the grilled cheese qualifiers with pictures and results from the San Diego and Sturgis events and a video from Detroit (but nothing from Springfield)

Thanks Patrick Bertoletti for the link

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The Detroit Free Press has put out another article four days after a contest focusing on locals finishing out of the top spots about the Grilled Cheese qualifier at the Michigan state fair. The article mentions that there will be a grilled cheese finals in Phoenix in October. (I was not sure if there would be a final contest or if the bonus money would be alloted to the best finishers in the qualifiers)

Thanks Patrick Bertoletti for the link

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competitiveeaters.com has some pictures of the premier of Swallow Your Pride, but no commentary about the film besides the fact that it was well received.

Humble Bob has removed his review of that motion picture after just one day.

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Four days after the smoked pork contest in Iowa, the Ralston Recorder has an article about that competition. The article focuses on local Dennis Tribbie, who manages less than two pounds of pork.

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CBS news has videos of both the Sheboygan bratwurst and Hong Kong dumpling contests. Johnny Wu finished only 7 dumplings behind Kobayashi’s total of 83 in that contest.

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It has been one month since this site was moved off of blogspot I am surprised that it has been able to obtain the audience it has with Google currently ranking it poorly. (It does not come up at all in the 293 results Google returns for “Sonya Thomas”.) Thanks for keeping the comments high quality and non-abusive. I hope to avoid requiring registration for commenting for as long as possible.

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• Bahrain Ice Cream Eating Contest It is surprising an Islamic country would not only have an adult women’s division, but match up the women’s and men’s winners to determine the overall champion
• Trentonian column mentioning the NJ Pizza contest
• Humble Bob’s review of the “Swallow Your Pride” competitive eating documentary. The documentary features both IFOCE and AICE eaters and focuses on the Wing Bowl, especially the rivalry between Philly and non-Philly competitors. Eaters from the Philadelphia suburbs are apparently treated as outsiders, so Kate Stelnick might experience some hostility if she ever participates in it.
• In more movie news, boxofficeprophets.com (go to the end of the page) mentions the upcoming competitive eating film. I think the film will be based on El Wingador, but I believe that the Sonya Thomas biography from her first contest to the 2004 Wing Bowl would make a better story (if a movie studio did not find it too implausible.)

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In this episode of According to Jim, which reran Tuesday (and I missed), Jim loses a hot dog eating contest to a slender Asian female. This is the first appearance of a Sonya Thomas type in popular culture that I am aware of.

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Bluffs Run Casino (Council Bluffs Iowa) Smoked Pork Results August 21:

1. Rich LeFevre
2. Carlene LeFevre
3. Larry McNeil
4. Loren Yarbrough

As expected, the LeFevres take the top two. I think Carlene’s 2nd place is her best showing in a non-qualifier since she won the posole contest last fall.

This article from omaha.com mentions the contest and has a picture of the LeFevres. The caption states that Carlene took 2nd, but not that Rich won. (Registration or bugmenot.com required).

If the smoked pork was in the form of ribs, then this is the third IFOCE ribs contest held in the last two months and Rich LeFevre has participated in all three.

IFOCE will hold its second contest in the eastern Nebraska region (Council Bluffs is across the river from Omaha) in 6 days when a Grilled Cheese qualifier is held August 27 in Lincoln at the Nebraska State Fair.

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delawareonline.com has an article about the crabcake contest. Sonya had a cheering section travel from No. VA and had to come from behind to beat Joey Chestnut as in bratwurst.

The Courier-Post has an article about the NJ Tomato festival. The only mention of the pizza contest is that Cookie Jarvis won (there is also a picture of it) Beautiful Brian also has an eyewitness account and some pictures of the contest. (Cookie Jarvis’ wife appears as tall as he is)

No articles about Detroit grilled cheese and no information whatsoever about the Iowa smoked pork contest are available. (Speedeat.com will probably claim that IFOCE.com does not have the Iowa results because they are embarassed about the field besides the LeFevres)

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Yahoo news has an article from the AFP (French news association) about Kobayashi. He says he only does five major contests a year and that his least favorite food was cow brains from the Glutton Bowl.

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It is difficult to make the claim that it is insensitive to hold eating contests because people in places like India are going hungry when an eating competition was held in India.

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Delaware Crabcakes
Delaware State News has an article about the crabcake contest out. The 2003, 04 and probable 2005 rookies of the year took the top 3 places. This win will extend Sonya’s non-Kobayashi winning streak to about 7 months and gives her $8,000 in prizes for August.

Michigan Grilled Cheese
Patrick Bertoletti, 1st 21.5 grilled cheeses, Jammin’ Joe LaRue 2nd 18, and T. Brown 15. Patrick Bertoletti ties Sonya Thomas for the best mark so far in Grilled Cheese. Patrick Bertoletti would probably be rookie of the year if not for Joey Chestnut. I am not sure why Sonya Thomas went to San Diego instead of NC or SC for grilled cheese. It would be a much shorter trip and she would have a better idea of what result would be needed for the the best overall mark would be since those contests are later in the circuit.

NJ Pizza
Ed Cookie Jarvis 1st, 2 full pies and two generous bites, Bob Shoudt, 2nd 1 2/3 pies, Pat from Moonachie, 3rd 1 1/2 pies, Brian Seiken 4th (See here for Brian’s explanation why he didn’t finish 3rd)

Iowa Smoked Pork
No results are in. With Patrick Bertoletti going to Detroit, it would be a big upset if the LeFevres don’t finish 1-2 and Kevin Carr will probably finish 3rd.

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From http://www.sonyatheblackwidow.com/:

Midway Slots Crab Cake-Eating Championship, 21 Aug 05, Harrington, DE.

1. Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas, 40 Crab Cakes (to establish a World Standard)
2. Joey “Jaws” Chestnut: 38

Updated Aug 23 1:02 am

3. Tim “Eater X” Janus: 32

Joey Chestnut continues to establish himself as Sonya’s greatest American threat. Tim Janus originally planned to do the prizeless Saratoga Nathan’s qualifier; its cancellation resulted in him having a more lucrative weekend than planned.

Sonya will take a well deserved break next weekend before coming back with three contests Labor Day weekend.

I have a post containing links to articles about today’s contests tonight.

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The Star, from Malaysia, has an article about Sonya Thomas. The article is based on the San Francisco Chronicle interview from May. I am not sure if they obtained Sonya’s permission to reuse the pictures from that interview.

The Star also has an article about competitive eating in general noting the small size of the top eaters and mentioning the “Belt of Fat theory.”

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