The new poll asks which (non-rookie) eater made the biggest improvement in 2005-2006.

PermalinkComments (3)

Three Brothers Pizza – Sonya Thomas is listed as an expected entrant
Illinois State Fair Horseshoes
LA Tofu

PermalinkComments (5)

twincities.com asks several members of the Minnesota Vikings how close they could come to Kobayashi’s mark of 58 bratwurst in 10 minutes. (Sonya Thomas destroyed the best eater on the Washington Redskin’s, Randy Thomas, when she had a shrimp eating contest with him)

Kobayashi has returned to Japan and has written a blog entry about the contest.

PermalinkComments (4)

Adam Ash has a long review of “Insatiable” / “Horsemen of the Esophagus”. He dislikes the subject matter at first, but likes Fagone’s book.

Updated 8/12 2:05 am – Jason Fagone says Adam Ash’s review was plagiarized from a Sunday Telegraph review by William Leith

PermalinkComments

The AP calendar reports that Sonya Thomas will compete in Saturday’s Three Brothers Pizza eating contest in Greenbelt, MD. Sonya will look to extend her VA/MD/DC/DE/NC undefeated streak.

PermalinkComments (33)

The next poll category is for the female rookie of the year. The choices are Balinda Gould, Natsuko “Gal” Sone and Amy Walter

PermalinkComments

There will be at least 5 contests this weekend with a purse value of $1,000 or more:

3 Brothers Pizza, $5000
Illinois State Fair Horseshoes, $4000
Queens Chinese dumplings, $3600 – $1800 for men’s and women’s divisions
Windmill Hot Dog Eating contest, over $1000
LA Tofu eating contest, first place prize is a 13 day trip to Asia

The purse for the Ashbrook Saloon rib eating contest is not listed

PermalinkComments (5)

Another video clip of Natsuko “Gal” Sone and Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota’s weekly duel has been posted on youtube. The contest involves eating 5kg of udon (whatever that is) in 15 minutes.

PermalinkComments (4)

Domenico Alesi (who attended as a spectator) has a gallery and Erik “the Red” Denmark has a blog entry about last Saturday’s Johnsonville bratwurst contest.

PermalinkComments

(From mosesnews.com)
Nathan’s Famous announces that quarterly profits increased by 19.4% in the quarter ending June 25. Sales increased 7.6% and sales of hot dogs to food service companies increased by 17.8% Other revenues (including TV fees) increased just 1.6% (with the increase in TV ratings for 2006, it will be interesting to see if that figure will increase)

PermalinkComments (4)

The Onion’s horoscope for Pisces

You will rock the competitive-eating world this week after deciding to return to the sport just four hours after announcing your retirement.

I wonder if any eaters who have announced retirement and then returned are Pisces.

PermalinkComments (2)

The episode of “According to Jim” in which Jim Belushi loses a hot dog eating contest to a petite Asian woman will be rerun tonight at 9:30 Eastern on ABC

PermalinkComments

I have started voting for the “Trenchies” with the category of rookie male eater of 2005-2006. If you have difficulty voting, you can email your vote.

PermalinkComments (10)

Don “Moses” Lerman predicts he will destroy all challengers at the jalapeno eating contest at the Sky City Casino in New Mexico later this month.

PermalinkComments (5)

From CS & David Johansen

The following domains for AICE eaters were recently registered:
GentlemanJoeMenchetti.com
IanTheInvader.com
ChrisTheAmerican.com
MarkTheHumanVacuum.com
JoelTheCannon.com was listed in the email, but has not been registered.

The domains all link to existing web pages and were registered privately. Surprisingly, the Joe Menchetti domain links to cluckbucket.com and not speedeat. Ian Hickman’s domain links to his myspace page. Other myspace pages for AICE eaters:

Joshua Hearne
Chris Schlesinger
Vinny DiMeglio

PermalinkComments (14)

IFOCE.com has posted full results of Saturday’s Johnsonville bratwurst contest.

PermalinkComments

The second Waffle House World Waffle Eating Championship will be held in Atlanta the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. In last year’s contest, Joey Chestnut narrowly edged out Sonya Thomas for his first victory against the Black Widow. This will be the second major contest held in Atlanta Labor Day weekend; the finals of Moe’s Burritos for Life will be held on Saturday at Georgia Tech.

PermalinkComments (18)

I am going to start the Trenchie voting tomorrow night with these categories and choices (listed after the jump). Last minute nominations can still be made before that time. Each category can be voted on for two days. If you have difficulty voting, votes can be sent by email. I have tried to avoid purely subjective categories as I think that they will result in too much dissension.

Read the rest of this entry »

PermalinkComments (2)

From Mike Wooldridge – The Oakland A’s are having a hot dog eating contest on August 16. The registration deadline is August 7th (Monday)

PermalinkComments

Yahoo of Japan reports that Natsuko “Gal” Sone will follow the trail blazed by Cookie Jarvis, Crazy Legs Conti and others and enter the entertainment world.

PermalinkComments (6)

I will be teleblogging the broadcast of the Sheboygan Bratfest. It looks like the Hall of Fame induction ceremony will run long.

4:08 – the Reggie White induction is still going on, the whole broadcast will be shown on ESPN2 at 7

5:12 – the telecast has been completely pre-empted. I will try to watch the rerun on ESPN2 at 7.

7:03 – The broadcast opens with a history of the bratwurst festival. The weather report reads “You never sausage a nice day”

7:05 – Footage of Kobayashi working out is shown. Rich Shea predicts 2 eaters will break 50 brats. Sonya is interviewed and said her not being a favorite means less pressure for her.

7:09 – The announced attendance is 5,000. The ways to qualify are listed, which do not say the top 5 ranked get an automatic invitation. Footage of Tim Janus and Crazy Legs Conti at the qualifier is shown.

7:13 – The world’s largest grill is shown and the preparation method is explained.

7:19 – More bratfest history. A sausage making machine is shown. The first festival was held in 1953.

7:21 – Bratwurst techniques are explained. Chip Simpson is dispayed even though he did not qualify to my recollection.

7:24 – Profile of Joey Chestnut. He drinks a lot of water and has a “capacity run” at least once a week.

7:30 – The top 5 money winners are listed. Kobayashi’s earnings are listed at $100,000 even though I think he has not done any Japanese contest.

7:31 – El Toro, Conti, Bertoletti and Janus are briefly interviewed.

7:34 – Introductions, Thomas Denure (Georgetown, WI) , P J Kim (Princeton undergrad), Damon Serignet, Tim Brown (Chicago), Jim Hamrick, Frank Wach, El Toro Jiminez, Erik Denmark, Crazy Legs Conti (wearing a cheese necklace), Rich “the Locust” LeFevre, Tim Janus (carrying handlebars, claimed that Jennifer Annison gave him a gift basket because Vince Vaughn is an eating fan), Bob Shoudt, Pat Bertoletti (“You Talking to Meat” sign), Joey Chestnut, Takeru Kobayashi, Sonya Thomas (wearing the same orange shorts from Nathan’s).

7:45 – the contest starts – no running total (or even a clock) is displayed 🙁

7:47 – the running total is shown – Sonya is 5th , Kobayashi has a 1 – 2 lead over Joey

7:48 – quarter in Koby, Joey, Pat, Bob & Sonya is top 5

7:49 – 6 minutes left, Kobayashi’s lead is now 5/6 brats

7:50 – more helmetcam from P. J. Kim

7:51 – Kobayashi is at 36 at the halfway point

7:52 – Koby 41, Joey 34 with 4 minutes left

7:53 – Rich Shea claims Sonya has a mental block

7:54 – P.J. Kim is interviewed down 42 to 7

7:54 – 25% left Koby 47, Joey 38 Janus has passed Sonya for 5th

7:55 – Sonya is back in 5th, Koby’s lead reaches double digits

7:56 – Final results Koby 58, Joey 45 (who must “learn to love himself” to win Krystal), Pat 38

7:59 – a big check is passed to Kobayashi – he says he could eat more

8:00 – Joey is interviewed – he says he didn’t prepare for this contest like Nathan’s and says he will win Krystal.

PermalinkComments (23)

updated 5:15 pm with more results

From the Duluth Superior
1. Takeru Kobayashi, 58 bratwurst in 10 minutes
2. Joey Chestnut 45 bratwurst
3. Pat Bertoletti 39 bratwurst
4. Bob Shoudt 38.5 bratwurst
5. Tim Janus 37 bratwurst
6. Sonya Thomas 34 bratwurst

Kobayashi broke Sonya’s old record about halfway through the contest and had a 9 brat lead with 1:40 left, so he did not need a last minute comeback as he did in his last two contests against Joey Chestnut.

Updated 8/7 1:14 am – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article

Updated 8/7 10:49 am – Sheboygan Press contest writeup
Sheboygan Press festival writeup
Sheboygan Press photo gallery – has some good fan signs

PermalinkComments (5)

from megamunchFans interested in the outcome of the Krystal qualifiers (and pre-qualifiers) will not have to wait for results to be posted. Krystal announces that they intend to have live webcasts of all 157 contests in the series.

PermalinkComments

Sheboygan Times opening day report & festival schedule
Sheboygan Times pro contest editorial
Erik “the Red” Denmark radio interview podcast

PermalinkComments

The goldenpalace.net events website has a writeup of Saturday’s rhubarb pie contest and a video from the Today show.

PermalinkComments