(from Carey Poehlmann) The Times of London reports on yesterday’s breakfast eating contest sponsored by Premier Travel Inn that was held in London, England:

The meal — one sausage, one slice of bacon, one egg, four mushrooms and one croissant — pitted big figures in British eating such as the national champion Rob “Baby Face” Burns against newcomers such as Sir Scoffsalot and Laura Strachan.

The winner was Lup Fan Yau, whose 5¾ meals equated to two days’ worth of calories before lunch.

Lup Fan Yau works for The Sun newspaper.

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From Real Time with Bill Maher, August 19, 2005:

New Rule: Competitive eating isn’t a sport. It’s one of the seven deadly sins. ESPN recently televised the US Open of Competitive Eating, because watching those athletes at the poker table was just too damned exciting. What’s next, competitive farting? Oh wait. They’re already doing that. It’s called “The Howard Stern Show.”

From Jim’s Jottings column by Jim Sherman, Sr.

Competitive eating isn’t a sport. It’s one of the seven deadly sins. However, ESPN recently televised the U. S. Open of Competitive Eating, perhaps because watching those athletes at the poker table was just too exciting.

What’s next, competitive wind breaking? Oh, wait, they’re already doing that on way too many shows.

update Corrected author of quote from George Carlin (from Roscoe Manning)

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Takeru Kobayashi’s commercial for Coors Light can be viewed at http://youtube.com/watch?v=9dKX04NGXTk

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Gazette.net has an article about Juliet Lee in which Ryan Nerz appears to have forgotten about Carlene LeFevre:

She’s one of two women who have really made a mark on the sport, Nerz said.

Sonya ‘‘The Black Widow” Thomas, of Alexandria, Va., started on the competitive eaters circuit in 2003. She also eats one meal per day.

‘‘There’s good reasons why women might feel a little squeamish about doing such a graphic looking sport,” Nerz said. ‘‘It’s interesting that the two women who have broken in are tiny, dainty, very feminine women.”

Juliet says her performance was hurt by a root canal on July 2.

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Erik Denmark has written a report about his experience in last week’s Nathan’s finals which includes some interesting information about Joey Chestnuts counters:

I heard from someone who was watching Joey on stage that he was eating from multiple plates at the same time. This was more than likely a ploy to make it difficult for Kobayashi to determine where Chestnut’s actual numbers were at. This was a brilliant tactic by Joey because not only did it confuse Kobayashi, the judges totally messed up his count as well. Joey maintained at least a 3-5 hot dog lead throughout the competition. Joey’s counter was off by as many as 5 hot dogs for the entire second half of the contest when it looked like Kobayashi was catching up. The contest was never tied, not even close. Joey cleared his mouth with amazing ease in about 10 seconds after his final stuff, partly because he was so infuriated with his judge for screwing up his count, he wanted to tell him. If you read Joey’s lips he can be seen clearly telling his counter that his count was off by five repeadtedly when he clears his mouth at the end of the contest.

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An email from Megamunch about ESPN radio’s Mike & Mike possibly hosting Nathan’s in 2008 follows after the jump. The email also includes a report of Kobayashi being ranked #22 in Stuff Magazine’s ranking of the most powerful men under 30.
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A press release about today’s P’Zone exhibition is available.

Chestnut, the #2-ranked eater in the world, consumed 4.82 pounds of P’Zones, six times the amount eaten by Marivic Stewart, the upstart rookie, who could only stomach ¾ of a P’Zone, or .8 pounds. Marivic won the right to compete against Joey, as well as an all-expense paid vacation to New York, after submitting photos and an enthusiastic essay to Pizza Hut’s “Dare You to Still Be Hungry” contest in mid-June.

Kobayashi served as judge. Tim Janus was also present.

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The debut episode of “Glutton for Punishment” will be televised on Food TV tonight at 9:30 pm eastern. All Your TV describes the program’s content:

The premise of the show is pretty straightforward. Blumer travels around the world testing his eating, cooking and overall food skills. He enters a chile-eating contest, takes on some of the world’s fastest oyster shuckers and tries his hand at being a breakfast line cook.

Tonight’s episode will feature a hot chile eating contest in New Mexico.

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The entire broadcast of last year’s Gluttonous Queen program is available in 10 parts at http://www.youtube.com/user/iwasakinyama

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Liz K has posted her report from the 2007 Nathan’s finals from Coney Island. Arturo Rios, Jr. received the 2007 IFOCE Rookie of the Year award before the contest. There are also galleries from the weigh-in and contest.

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(From Erik Denmark) A DVD titled “Major League Eaters Vol. 1”, apparently an official MLE product, is available on netflix. Netflix appears to be the only location with information about the DVD.

In another DVD starring a Major League Eater, DVD Talk has a review of “Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating”, which has the following description of the star, Crazy Legs Conti:

Conti is an interesting character. He sort of floats through life by taking these different jobs here and there to pay the bills but shows no real dedication to his employment at any given time. In fact, it’s almost as if whatever particular jobs he’s working at any particular time is little more than a joke to him. The only things in life that he seems to take seriously are the eating contests. This, obviously, sets him apart from your average American, most of who tend to be very job focused and career minded in this day and age.

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Video clips of Gal Sone eating a big burger (about the size of Denny’s Beer Barrel’s 2 or 3 pound burger) and then a big dessert for a game show I cannot figure out the rules of are available on youtube:

Part 1, Part 2

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

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Hindu.com reports on a mango eating contest held at the Mango Festival in New Delhi, India:

In the mango eating competition for men and women, the first prize carried a cash component of Rs.3,000 and the second prize of Rs.2,000. In the women’s category Anita Chowdhary won the first prize for eating 1.392 kg of mango pulp and Asha Sood who managed to eat 1.298 kg of mango pulp bagged the second prize.

The mango eating competition for men that was held on Sunday saw a more competitive fight.

Shabil Khan won the first prize for eating 1.626 kg of mango pulp and the second prize was bagged by Deepak Grover who ate1.572 kg of mango pulp.

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The new poll asks how you would rank the top 4 IFOCE members. All choices have Joey and Kobayashi 1-2 (or vice versa) and Pat #3. If you have an alternate ordering, please list it in the comments.

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Brian Seiken has made the Joe Menchetti episode of his PPV program available for free. There is also a youtube clip of an outtake of a call-in to Joe by Brian Subich.

Brian says that Danielle Franco, the producer of Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating, will be the next guest for his pay per view program.

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A teleblog of the “Science of Speed Eating” documentary is available after the jump.
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After the “Science of Speed Eating” documentary appears on the National Geographic Channel at 9pm eastern and pacific (midnight eastern), the next appearance for competitive eating on cable television might be the Clearfield High football team attempting to eat Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub’s 100+ pound burger on Country Music Television’s “Country Fried Home Videos” on August 17 according to dennysbeerbarrelpub.com

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AOL FanHouse has an entry about competitive eating on television:

Richard Sandomir, the great sports TV reporter for the New York Times, explores the way Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest has become a big TV event, and he says that with about 1.5 million people tuning in (exact numbers have not been released), Major League Eating could become a major player on cable TV.

The entry also speculates that Nathan’s could move to Spike TV in 2008.

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A gallery of the Nathan’s qualifier held at the Mall of America is available at nathansmoa.com

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Gluttonous Queen 2006 clips
introduction
Tokyo Qualifier – Miyuki Iwata vs. Tomoko Miyake
Osaka Qualifier – Gal Sone vs. Nurse

Clips from a show where Gal Sone eats food items with national flags on a conveyor belt. There are women in the audience from the countries corresponding to the flags.
Part 1
Part 2

Reuploads of removed videos
Gal Sone’s 40000 calorie journey
Gal Sone’s karaoke with speedeating interlude

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(From the Hangman) Video of a one minute hot dog exhibition contest beteween Bruce “The Hangman” Pobanz and a newspaper staffer can be viewed this weekend at http://www.thebrunswicknews.com/BNC.php

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Kevin Carr has started a weekly podcast about competitive eating at http://eatcast.blogspot.com/ Neil Miller will be Kevin’s cohost. The following topics are discussed in the premier podcast:

Kevin and Neil discuss the impact of the latest Nathan’s contest and Kobayashi’s reversal of fortune that went without a disqualification. In the second segment, Beautiful Brian Seiken calls in with a report on what was happening at ground zero on Coney Island and a history of reversal controversy.

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(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.

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Kobayashi has a bilingual blog entry about his second place finish in Wednesday’s Nathan’s finals:

I believe that the satisfaction one feels in competition is not purely derived from a result of victory or defeat. I can say that I am happy to have challenged a seventh consecutive win. From today on I will focus on treating my condition without getting too anxious. And I will definitely go for the next world record. Even if the pressure of it all crushes me.

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