A half century of the Hanamaki noodle contest
Iwanichi Online reports that Takashi Aoki won the 50th annual installment of the Hanamaki wanko soba noodle eating contest by eating 223 cups of noodles in 5 minutes. According to Kahoku, Aoki works as a hospital psychiatrist.
The contest’s 50 year duration probably makes it the world’s longest running annual eating competition. (The official Nathan’s history / apocrypha states that the 1971 Nathan’s hot dog contest was canceled as a “protest to civil unrest and the reign of free love”.)
JapanProbe and TVI both have videos of the contest. The blog for Foreign Policy magazine also mentions the contest.
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Frankie said (Registered February 9, 2007)
February 12, 2008 @ 7:56 pm
After seeing 223 cups as the contest total I was amazed. After seeing the spoon sized “cups” on the videos, I was underwhelmed.
Frankie