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Registration for the 5th Chef One Dumpling Eating Contest is now open (registration form). The competition will take place at the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in Flushing Meadows, Queens on August 3. The event will have men’s and women’s divisions and both divisions will award $1800 in prize money. Joe Menchetti and Floria Lee are expected to return to defend their titles.
Valerie Bromann, who previously photographed the Krystal Square Off finals, attended last week’s Nathan’s finals and posted a blog entry and gallery with over 100 pictures.
The Daily News Online has a preview of Sunday’s rib eating contest at Chinook Winds Casino in Oregon. The columnist, Rick S. Alvord, turned down an offer from the casino:
The fine folks at the casino told me to call them if I had a craving to interview Chestnut. Yeah, well, my career hasn’t deteriorated to that point yet, but thanks anyway.
For some reason, I think I already know what he’d say …
A mock Joey Chestnut interview follows. (Perhaps the real Joey Chestnut could have informed the author that the Wing Bowl does not take place at night)
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s food blog has an entry about a contest scheduled for Saturday:
A three-person team from local Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwich outlets will be attempting to make sandwiches faster than a team of three world-class, competitive Major League Eaters can eat them. It’s called the Freaky Fast Sandwich Making and Eating Contest.
update (from Crawfish) Contest information is now available on IFOCE.com. The three MLE eaters competing are Tim Janus, Tim Brown and Mike Fitzgerald.
The URL http://www.yardbarker.com/eating will bring up all competitive eating related posts on the Yardbarker blog. This will list not only Joey Chestnut’s and Pat Bertoletti’s blog, but also MissBusyLady’s fan blog and other eating related entries, such as this report from the Nathan’s finals.
Kobayashi has written two blog entries containing English about the recent Nathan’s finals. One thanks fans for their support, the other contains Kobayashi’s thoughts on the overtime format (not automatically translated):
In this case, I think the correct approach is to look at the situation as this: we decided the winner through a different event (rather than that we decided the winner in an extension of the 10-minute battle).
So for me, deciding the champion in a five hot dog challenge is no different to deciding the champion by playing “rock, scissors, paperâ€.
Kobayashi also has a blog entry comparing winning qualifier totals with the amounts eaten in the finals.
Ken Hoffman of the Houston Chronicle has a column about serving as a judge at the Nathan’s finals, where he was assigned to keep track of Juris Shibayama’s total. Hoffman did not focus 100% on counting the amount of hot dogs eaten by “Dr. Big Time”:
Even though I was counting Shibayama’s hot dogs, I was videotaping Chestnut and Kobayashi’s furious assault on processed meat and enriched white bread. I looked like a total tourist with my badge and camera dangling from my neck.
While the contest was going on, my cell phone rang. It was my buddy Sean Pendergast. “I’m watching on TV — which judge are you?”
The column reports that the Major League Eating Wii game will be released next week, which would give it a Bastille Day release date and set up the possibility of a crepe eating contest to promote its launch.
George Shea describes how the overtime format was decided on:
“In most matches, we use a one-minute overtime to decide ties,” Shea said. “However, the speed with which Kobayashi and Chestnut eat would have made it very difficult to judge who had eaten more. I felt it would be more decisive to have a five-hot-dog eat-off.”
Juliet Lee has updated her WriteNow page with news from her trip to the Nathan’s finals where she received the 2008 IFOCE Rookie of the Year award. She also announced that she finished recording a documentary being produced by the Food Network.
The pictures above are from valjean615’s flickr gallery from the Nathan’s finals, which includes pictures of all competitors entrances (Arturo Rios also removed his shirt like Juris Shibayama) along with the Rookie of the Year ceremony. Patrick Vandam and Juris Shibayama were apparently the other finalists for that award.
From the Elizabethton Star:
1. Dale Boone 21 hot dogs in 12 minutes, $250
2. James Wilson, 15 (last year’s winner)
A rerun of the last Friday’s Nathan’s finals will be televised on ESPN on July 11 at 3am eastern.
SalisburyPost.com has an article about the July 4 Apple Ugly eating contest. The top 3:
1. Dale Boone, 17 Apple Uglies
2. Keatin “Thunder” Shelton, 14
3T Timothy “Ace” Cameron, 10
3T Kristy Spurlock, 10
Dale Boone describes his techniques in the article:
“I came Monday night with these big cups,” Boone said. “I get here tonight, every single one of them’s got a big cup.
“They’re paying attention to me. That’s what’s scary.”
Boone one-upped them again though: They brought bigger cups of water this time but Boone dipped each of his Uglies in a cup of hot tea.
The article reports that Boone ate 21 hot dogs at an Elizabethton, TN hot dog contest earlier that day. It does not say how he placed.
ExpressIndia reports that Anita Choudhary won the women’s division of the mango contest at the New Delhi Mango Festival by eating 1.194 kg of mangos in 3 minutes. A youtube video of the contest is available and says she is the repeat winner.
Pictures and videos of Furious Pete’s attempt at the Clinton Station Diner’s Zeus burger challenge have been posted to bodybuilding.com. It is estimated he finished about 60% of the burger. The current prize for finishing the burger is $500. Forks are apparently allowed at the Clinton Station Diner (they are prohibited in Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub’s challenges)
Augusta.com reports that Dale Boone won $1000 recently by being the first person to eat a 28 inch cheese pizza from Roma’s Pizza in under 90 minutes.
WLOCE.com reports that Dale Boone also won the Apple Ugly eating contest in North Carolina yesterday and competed in the Elizabethton, TN hot dog contest.
The new poll asks who you think should be in second place in the next IFOCE poll. Some people think that Kobayashi was the rightful winner of Nathan’s, which could put Joey Chestnut in the second place position.
KrystalSquareOff.com announces that the date for this year’s Krystal Square Off finals will be September 28, a month earlier than previous years. The site will remain the Tennessee River in downtown Chattanooga. The qualifier schedule will be announced later.
Results from the Nathan’s finals
1. Joey Chestnut 59, won 5 hot dog eat off
2. Takeru Kobayashi 59
3. Tim Janus 42
4. Pat Bertoletti 38
5. Sonya Thomas 34
Online news archives contradict Rich Shea’s claim that the contest was the first to be tied at the end of regulation time: 1990, 1980, 1978 (Memorial Day weekend)
Comments on this post are now closed. Please use the second place poll thread to comment on the Nathan’s finals.
update #4
Gothamist blog entry and gallery
Sports Illustrated article and gallery
Joey Chestnut’s mother prepares for her son’s return
Jill Stoler blog entry about Coney Island contest
July 5 update #3
Yardbarker report from Coney Island. Juliet Lee was named rookie of the year.
Newsday article and gallery
New York Post report
San Jose Mercury article
Calorie Lab blog entry
ABC News article
Wackbag thread with Pat Philbin pictures
Times and Democrat column
Southtown Star article about Pat Bertoletti
BBC news video
Kobayashi’s blog entry about the contest
Praise for Rich LeFevre
Anti-CE thread in Serious Eats from Raphael Brion
update #2 IFOCE.com has full results (from Crawfish)
AP article
Gersh Kuntzman column
ESPN.com video
flickr gallery by dietrich (from TechCrunch)
update NECN.com has the contest video in its entirety
The teleblog follows after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
A list of all competitors in the Nathan’s finals along with their qualifier date, location and amount eaten is available after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
Kobayashi’s blog announces that his online store has been set up at http://www.merchdirect.net/Kobayashi/. Six T shirt designs are available, including the “Kobayashi eats Chestnuts for breakfast” shirt he wore to the weigh in.
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.
Loading ...| 2026 Jun 15 | Foley, MN | Hot Dog Eating Contest | ||||
| 2026 Jun 16 | Sparks, NV | Taco Eating Contest | ||||
| 2026 Jun 17 | Charleston, SC | Tacos for Tom | ||||
| 2026 Jun 18 | Denville, NJ | Hot Dog Eating Contest | ||||
| 2026 Jun 18 | Yakima, WA | Hot Dog Eating Contest | ||||
| 2026 Jun 19 | Kalispell, MT | Hot Wing Eating Contest | ||||
| 2026 Jun 19 | Logan, UT | Ice Cream Eating Contest | ||||
| 2026 Jun 19 | Kalispell, MT | Mini Donut Eating Contest | ||||
| 2026 Jun 19 | I | Hershey, PA | Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest Qualifier - men | |||
| 2026 Jun 19 | I | Hershey, PA | Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest Qualifier - women |
| 2026 Jun 15 Foley, MN
Hot Dog Eating Contest |
| 2026 Jun 14 Ethan, SD
Carolina Reaper Cheese Eating Contest |
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| 2026 Jun 14 Valley, NE
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| 2026 Jun 14 Metropolis, IL
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| $300.00 | "The Village Inn" |
| $100.00 | Jayden "FitnessCheatMeals" |
| $500.00 | Jean Christophe |
| $3,000.00 | Wayne "wayneywonder" Algenio |