• Hall Hunt article in U of Florida student paper. Hall had a bad knee while he ran a marathon last Saturday. An article about Erin Andrews appears in the same issue.
• Crazy Legs Conti and Tim Janus appear in music video by Low Water (myspace)
• Wing Tut previews the contests he will MC this weekend. Samatha Brown of the Travel Channel might compete in the Italian sausage contest.
• MissBusyLady contemplates a Burritozilla attempt
• News items after May 8 removed from IFOCE home page
• Article about Randy Harrison, participant in the US Open of Competitive Eating
• WLOCE registration is open (from Crawfish comment)
• MTV’s video game blog has footage of the first two minutes of the MLE game
• Blog entry about Pauliesaurus challenge. The current prize is $250.

Hall Hunt has compiled the votes for his new poll taken after the Nathan’s finals. The new top 5:

1. Joey “Jaws” Chestnut (10) (292) [1]
2. Takeru Kobayashi (1) (279) [4]
3. Patrick “Deep Dish” Bertoletti (1) (257) [2]
4. Tim “Eater-X” Janus (238) [5]
5. Sonya “The Blackwidow” Thomas (233) [7]

• Hall Hunt completes the Grandfather Mountain Marathon (Boone, NC area)
• Singapore qualifier videos and photos
• Fort Wayne hot dog contest report (full results)
• Manning brothers compete in Oreo Double Stuf Lick Race with $10,000 prize
• Two questions by Skinnyboy
• Greenwood, SC hot dog contest results
• CBS 46 video of Atlanta bacon contest
• Michelle Lesch wins 10th South Africa oyster eating contest

• Joey Chestnut on the Today Show after defending his Nathan’s title
• Short article about Hall Hunt on jacksonville.com
• Mini burger eating contest in Long Beach Monday. Purse is $600 in restaurant gift certificates.
• FCC affirms $4000 fine of WIP for not following listed rules in Wing Bowl 13.
• Parody about alleged performance enhancing drug use in the Nathan’s finals
• Southington, CT hot dog contest also goes into overtime
• Kobayashi has a blog entry about Hungry & Focused 4 showing Super Paul Barlow’s cover art
• Kobayashi also has a link to Erin Wigger’s gallery of competitive eaters

• Tampa Bay Online article about Nathan’s finals
• Joey Chestnut interview for Tampa Bay Online
  

  Q: Do you and Kobayashi actually hate each other?
  A: We might like each other in 15 years when we’re done. A lot of us are close friends.

• Hall Hunt article in First Coast News
• AFP article about Nathan’s finals. Kobayashi says he will eat at least 60 HDB
• Japan Today article about Nathan’s finals
• Little Italy pasta contest July 5
• Updated odds on gambling911.com
• re-release of 2007 Jason Fagone article about C E injuries (from Wing Kong & Megamunch)
• Youtube video of QVC qualifier
• More comments on the WSJ Health blog

Articles about Nathan’s finalists

• Pat Philbin - NJ.com
• Hall Hunt - Orlando Sentinel
• Nate Biller - MySanAntonio.com
• Pete Davekos - Boston Herald
• Takeru Kobayashi - NY Daily News

• The Wall Street Journal’s health blog on competitive eating
• Will Millender and Sal Carbone expected at Peggy O’Neil’s hamburger eating contest
• IFOCE BBQ sandwich eating contest near Tulsa July 26 - registration opens Monday (from Crawfish)
• The Sporting News blog thinks Nathan’s hype is down in 2008

Charlotte / Concord results from IFOCE.com Hall Hunt repeats with a victory margin considerably larger than in 2007.

1. Hall Hunt 34.5 HDB
2. Todd Hennessey 18
3. Chris Wooten 11, UNC Charlotte student

The Salisbury Post has an article about the qualifier which says that Hall “Hoover” Hunt, Pierre “The Real Deal” Abry and C. Todd “Can’t Ya See?” Hennessey are expected entrants.

update Charlotte.com has a video and Sadie of Hungry Sisters served as Hall’s bunette.

update #2 Jeff Chapman has a contest report

update #3 Hall Hunt has a blog entry with pictures

FoxNews has an article and video clip

David Arnott of SportingNews.com competed in the qualifier and has a blog entry

BeautifulBrian.com has a page about Hall’s victory

• AOL FanHouse responds to Canadian Catholic newspaper’s criticism of the eating contest held on Mike & Mike in the Morning (The first competitive eating post on FanHouse since Sonya Thomas oversaw a contest at a Washington Capitals game)
• Hall Hoover begins selling T shirts
• May 24 Pittsburgh Nathan’s qualifier to take place at Greensburg Sam’s Club
• Something for the 2005 commenter who wanted more posts about female Hollywood celebrities
• Pittsburgh area hot wing contest today (from “Bubba”)
• All you can eat seats at Minnesota Twins games Monday and Tuesday
• 68 year old German man, Heinz Asthoff, eats up to 12,000 calories a day without gaining weight (translated German article)
• Video of Takuya Yamamoto and Tomoko Miyake attempting eating challenges

• Juliet Lee has updated her WriteNow page with information about her last two contests
• Hall Hunt says the press release for the sweet corn eating contest announces that Sonya Thomas, Crazy Legs Conti and Joe LaRue will compete
• Wing Tut wants the next UEPa meeting to take place in the Pittsburgh Pirates AYCE section
• Steakbellie has thoughts about the new rankings, the MLE video game and Nathan’s
• Wing Kong also has thoughts on Nathan’s
• Charlotte Nascar track to offer AYCE seats (from the Hangman)
• Dan Rubenstein, who is traveling around the country producing videos for Sports Illustrated, competes in the qualifier for the Collegiate Nationals

Sun Sentinel has an article about Hall Hunt and Joe LaRue viewing a recent Miami Heat game in the all you can eat section. Hall wrote a blog entry about his trip south. Both Hunt and LaRue are expected to compete in the corn eating contest next week.

Juris Shibayama has a page on IFOCE.com in which he describes his exercise regimen.

Hall Hunt announces that he is going to start training for a marathon and has a report on the 10k he ran last weekend.

• Another video of Kenny & Ziggy’s Matzoh Ball Eating contest
• Video from the 2003 matzoh ball eating contest held at Ben’s Deli
• Acme Oyster contest returning in 2008?
• Commenter reports that winner of Des Moines bacon eating contest, Manni, is a gym owner
• Benefit Saturday to preserve Coney Island as an amusement district
• Hall Hunt has a report on his appearance at the Rays Fan Festival
• Collegiate Nationals eating contest mentioned in USA Today

Beautiful Brian has a commentary on Chestnut vs. MLE and a CD update
Hall Hunt does eating contest at Rays Fan Festival and eats 13 hot dogs in undisclosed time (Kobayashi attended last year’s Rays Fan Festival)
Picture of Kobayashi before 2007 Nathan’s finals, used on wikipedia page
Frank Pastore mentions the breaking of the 72 oz steak record on his blog (from supersizedmeals comment)
Picture of 37 inch pizza from Big Lou’s Pizza in San Antonio
Dude a Palooza has male oriented events including eating contests
Liz K buys a house (gallery)

SportsIllustrated.com has an article about Hall “Hoover” Hunt.

(from the Hangman) Jacksonville.com has a brief article about Hall Hunt’s appearance in the “Turkey Bowl” where he will compete in the cranberry sauce undercard.

Hall Hunt and Erik Denmark have both posted trip reports with several pictures on their experiences at the Krystal finals.

Hall Hunt has uploaded the remainder of the Jacksonville Krystal qualifier video: Part 2a, Part 2b

Hall has also added some pictures and a report on the Chicago jalapeno contest.

KrystalSquareOff.com has the top 5 of today’s qualifier:

1. Hall Hunt 49
2T. Elizabeth “Rubber Gut” Canady 38 (just 4 off Sonya’s female first time Krystal record of 42)
2T. Tim Brown, 38
4. Juliet Lee, 35
5T. Scott Schnipper, 23
5T. Geno “The Dominator” Duncan 23

I think this is the first time women have occupied half of the top 4 of an IFOCE contest.

Jacksonville.com has an article about the contest

FirstCoastNews.com also has an article with a video (click on the thumbnail above for some captures from it)

update Jacksonville.com has another article about the contest.

A video of a 30 second Krystal contest between Hall Hunt and two employees of CBS 47 can be viewed at http://www.cbs47.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=15147

Jacksonville.com has an article about Hall Hunt, who will compete in the Jacksonville Krystal Square Off qualifier on Labor Day.

(from The Hangman) FirstCoastNews.com has a video clip of an interview with Hall Hunt.

(from Tim Brown) A video of a half minute contest held on July 3 between Hall Hunt and Tim Brown on MyFoxNY.com is available.

Hall Hunt also has a blog entry about his experience at the contest with pictures from an competitors party.

Juliet Lee in the Baltimore Sun
Pat Philbin in NorthJersey.com
Hall Hunt in Jacksonville.com
Steakbellie has miniprofiles of all the finalists

Liz has posted to truefan an interview with Hall Hunt after he qualified for the Nathan’s finals by winning the Concord Mills qualifier. Hall explains why he did not underestimate Juliet Lee:

Woman, man…if you can eat, you can eat. I felt very comfortable eating up there. This maybe a bit of a tangent, but it reminded me of a time in college when I was dating this one girl who was a big eater herself. She and I after getting a good workout at the gym would rent a good movie, buy a couple large containers of food from the local wholesale grocery store and see who could eat more. I must admit that one time she beat me. That was the only time I ever lost to anyone in an eating contest before I joined the MLE and it was to a woman. Ever since then I have never underestimated females.

Paul Barlow has contributed two pictures from the contest. One picture shows Hall Hunt shoving a hot dog at the end to provide the winning margin.