The New York Times has an article assessing Kobayashi’s impact on competitive eating.

If Kobayashi loses, the contest runs the risk of losing its marquee star.

“People are attracted to the game by individuals, but then they become more familiar with the game and so there’s a path from being a fan of an individual to being a fan of the sport,” Mandelbaum said. “But I’m not sure if people watch this for the same reason people watch sports.”

Ruth passed the mantle of stardom in baseball to Lou Gehrig, among others, leaving baseball significantly stronger than it was when he started. Time will show whether the interest in hot dog-eating competitions will continue, but having Chestnut around to succeed Kobayashi may be important to keep fans watching.

HudsonReporter.com has an article with information about last weeks pigs feet eating contest at the New Jersey State Fair. Arturo Rios’ winning amount was 2.89 pounds, more than one pound more than the second place finisher.

update Erik Denmark also has a blog entry about the contest.

From the EATORF calendar

Sat. June 30 @8pm The Stadium Club in Moosic Boneless Hot Wings ($200 first prize)
Fri. July 20 @ Gametime 7pm PNC Field in Moosic during Yankees game Hot Dogs
Wed. August 8 @ 9pm Joe Shags Restaurant in Pittston Square Pizz

Historical weather data from JFK airport (which presumably is the same as the weather on Coney Island) is available at wunderground.com. Using this archive, it is difficult to discern any connection between the weather and Kobayashi’s performance at the Nathan’s finals.

(weather data is from approximately 12:50 pm)

2001 50 HDB 71.1 °F / 21.7 °C 93% humidity, overcast
2002 50.5 HDB 96.1 °F / 35.6 °C 40% humidity, partly cloudy
2003 44.5 HDB 81.0 °F / 27.2 °C 72% humidity, clear
2004 53.5 HDB 77.0 °F / 25.0 °C 64% humidity, mostly cloudy
2005 49 HDB 78.1 °F / 25.6 °C 48% humidity, scattered clouds
2006 53.75 HDB 84.9 °F / 29.4 °C 65% humidity, haze

Brian Seiken has uploaded a video of his 2 minute exhibition with Arturo Rios, Jr. on New York cable to http://hometown.aol.com/beautifulbrian43/msg.html

(Thanks Brian Cooley) The Chattanooga Times Free Press has an interview with Kobayashi conducted from his hotel in New York City. An audio clip of the interview is available. Kobayashi intends to compete in this fall’s Krystal Square Off IV regardless of whether he participates in the July 4 contest.

AsianWeek has an article about last Saturday’s Nathan’s qualifier in Daly City, CA, won by Rich LeFevre. The controversy about the size of the hot dogs is mentioned.

Arturo Rios Jr., a truck driver for the New York Daily News, appears in an article in the paper he delivers.

A listing of the Japanese top 30 places “Boom Boom Meccha Maccho” at #19 in its first week of release.

Top competitors who competed in 3 contests

75.5 Allen Goldstein (25.5, 24, 26)
74 Tim Brown (24, 25, 25)
65 Brian Subich (27, 19, 19)
64 Marco “Mongo” Marquez (21, 23, 20)
60 Russ Keeler (23, 20, 17)
54 Justin Mih (21, 18, 15)
45.5 Bill Myers (16.5, 14, 15)
44 Jason Erb (16, 14, 14)
38.75 Pete Miernicki (13.75, 13, 12)

Crazy Legs Conti appears on the front page of today’s amNY newspaper. An article about his training for the Nathan’s finals appears in that issue, along with a slideshow, video and chronology of hot dog eating innovations which lists Conti’s new technique

2007- Crazy Legs Conti turns the bun inside out for greater dunking surface area and calls the technique “Reverse Bunning.”

(From AICE news) Ian Hickman will be interviewed on Mix 103.7 tomorrow morning at 8:35 am eastern. The interview can be listened to online at http://mix1037.com/

From a Sean Gordon email:

1. 32 Bob Shoudt (21 halfway)
2. 26 Brad Sciullo
3. 19 Chris “the Mad greek” Abatsas

Paul s, russ keeler, justin mih, wild bill also in attendance.

CompetitiveEatingNews reports that Tim Brown will receive a slot in the Nathan’s finals:

Gravy Brown, the most promising eater Chicago’s produced since the great Bertoletti, will also compete.

Much buzz has surrounded the Wild Card win of Shredder since he would have won the Civil Service qualifier outright had Rios Grande not competed. Investigative reports have suggested that Rios is not a civil servant and neither is Goldstein.

Kobayashi’s most recent blog entry has an announcement in two languages. The English version of this statement follows:

I would like to thank everyone who provided me with all kinds of useful information these past few days.
Thanks to everyone’s support, I am able to aggressively pursue treatment for my condition.
The Nathan’s International Hot Dog Eating Contest is a competition that I love.
And I intend to do everything I can to treat this condition in what little time I have and to focus on the tournament.
I look forward to facing my fellow competitors on July 4th!

There is also information about his medical treatment in Japanese only

The New York Times blog has an entry about Kobayashi which mentions today’s Nathan’s qualifier held in Manhattan. The qualifier is called the Civil Service qualifier, but the winner was not a goverment worker:

At noon today in the food court of the Manhattan Mall in Midtown, Major League Eating held the second-to-last of 13 qualifiers for next week’s Nathan’s contest. Seven men took part; the winner was Arturo Rios Jr., 30, of Long Branch, N.J., a driver for The Daily News, who consumed 27.5 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes.

Allen Goldstein came in second with 26 HDB, giving him the wild card lead.

Tim Brown has considerable reason to be upset with Rios being allowed to compete, as this denied him the wild card slot.

update NY1 has an article and video about the contest

update #2 Metro and amNY have articles about the contest.

Metro says the contest was “billed as a chance for an “ordinary eater” or civil servant to join next week’s ultra-competitive field” Apparently Rios’ rank of #9 in the current IFOCE poll qualified him as an “ordinary eater”

The Washington Post’s Express has an article about Sonya Thomas that is not 100% accurate:

Might that mean that Alexandria’s very own “Black Widow,” the highly ranked competitive eater Sonya Thomas, might be moving up the rankings? She’s scheduled to compete in Nathan’s hot dog bun eating contest, but, so far, not the hot dog competition itself.

Jeannie Moos, who does reports about New York City for CNN, did a segment about Kobayashi’s possible absence from the Nathan’s finals which can be seen at http://www.cnn.com/offbeat/ (video will probably be available only on June 27) Joey Chestnut calls in with a phone interview.

On ESPN’s Sportcenter, several analysts in various sports provided commentary about Kobayashi’s jaw arthritis. Dave “MegaMunch” Shoffner provided a transcription for that segment which follows after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jason Fagone did an interview for Metro about his thoughts about Kobayashi’s condition and health issues for competitive eaters:

Are jaw arthritis or other similar problems common among competitors whose careers revolve around shoving ungodly amounts of food down their throats?

Sonya [“The Black Widow” Thomas] complains a lot about her jaw, or at least she did while I was reporting the book. She feels that one of the big bottlenecks in her game is her jaw strength. She’s also kind of insecure about her speed of swallowing. She tells this story to reporters about trying to eat many hard-boiled eggs on stage in front of a lot of people. … She had this terrible moment of seizing up and thinking she was going to choke and die in front of a lot of people. She powered through and she managed to eat some absurd amount of hard-boiled eggs.

(From Nathan Biller) In Jim Caple’s rankings of 101 sporting events for ESPN.com, the Nathan’s finals are #94. The Wing Bowl is #9 on the list of the top 10 events to avoid.

From an email from Brian Seiken:

Around 5-6PM EST SNY the mets station on cable tv will show MLE hot dog exhibition live . Rios myself and possibly Shredder will take part in i think a one or two minute eatoff. on June 27th tommorow Thought i would pass it on.

The Creative Loafing blog has an entry and picture of Dale Boone winning the Atlanta qualifier.

Newsday reports that Kobayashi’s request for assistance have resulted in him finding a suitable medical professional to treat his condition:

On Tuesday, his United Food Fighters Organization said on its Web site that Kobayashi has found a doctor he can trust and was “creating an environment in which he can dedicate himself to healing.”

“The contest is coming up soon, and we’d happy if everyone kept him in their thoughts,” the group wrote.

The information originally appeared on Kobayashi’s news page

There will not be a MLE event on Spike TV in the second quarter of 2007, but there will be a competitive eating themed program on this week when the episode of CSI about the death of a competitive eater, which originally ran Thanksgiving weekend 2005, is rerun on Thursday at 7pm eastern