Competitive Eating category

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The Japan Reporter has a 10 minute documentary titled "Rise and Fall of Japan's Big Eating Culture"

May 21, 2026 at 11:51 pm by ojrifkin · More posts about:Documentaries, Japan | Permalink * Comments

Number of Nathan’s qualifiers by contest year

May 16, 2026 at 8:28 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Nathan's Hot Dog Contest, Statistics

Here is the number of Nathan’s Famous hot dog qualifiers in the database since 2002 by contest year. The list does not include non hot dog competitions like the 2005 UK sausage eating contest that awarded a finals spot.

2025-26 2
2024-25 6
2023-24 7
2022-23 6
2021-22 2
2020-21 0
2019-20 3
2018-19 16
2017-18 19
2016-17 19
2015-16 12
2014-15 15
2013-14 15
2012-13 12
2011-12 14
2010-11 15
2009-10 15
2008-09 18
2007-08 19
2006-07 14
2005-06 16
2004-05 14
2003-04 14
2002-03 13

A list of all the qualifiers follows after the jump
Read the rest of this entry »

Comments (9)

Pat Bertoletti was the guest on this morning's epsidoe of "Toon in with Me" on MeTV.

May 12, 2026 at 10:50 pm by ojrifkin · More posts about:Pat Bertoletti, Television, Videos | Permalink * Comments (5)

The World Strawberry Shortcake Eating Championship will return to the Mattituck, NY Strawberry Festival. The contest date will probably be June 20.

April 28, 2026 at 11:10 pm by ojrifkin · More posts about:Man vs. Food: Long Island | Permalink * Comments (6)

Fortune has an article about Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's wing eating events. He held a weekly competitions with his friends in Seattle and also held a wing eating contest at the Amazon AWS re:Invent convention. Jassy's personal best is 57 wings.

April 28, 2026 at 2:00 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Business, Seattle | Permalink * Comments

The Korean Herald reports tha mukbang star Tzuyang, who has 13.2 million subscribers for her youtube channel, will start a television program "Still Hungry" on the cable channel ENA in May.

April 16, 2026 at 1:07 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Korea, Television | Permalink * Comments (23)

Ryu @R78782179 won today's "King of Gluttony" competition televised on TV Tokyo. For the first time in several contests, all competitors were Japanese. Kawaxile was runner-up and Angela Sato was third. A video of the whole broadcast is currently available on youtube.

April 12, 2026 at 9:48 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Japan, Television, Videos | Permalink * Comments

Food Challenge News has an article about the British Eating League and its founder Craig Harker.

March 29, 2026 at 1:21 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Organizations, United Kingdom | Permalink * Comments (2)

Extreme Eating Championships announced that Joey Chestnut will be competing in its World Chocolate Cake Eating Championship at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa on April 4. I think this will be the first time a Major League Eating competitor has done a contest sanctioned by an organization other than MLE. Buccaneers offensive linemen Tristan Wirfs and Luke Goedeke will also compete.

March 24, 2026 at 4:22 pm by ojrifkin · More posts about:Joey Chestnut, Male Athletes, Organizations, Tampa | Permalink * Comments (38)

The Nairobi Times reports that Boniface Ondimu passed away after choking in a bread eating competition held in Nairobi, Kenya. This is the second competitive eating fatality in 48 hours after a tragedy in Jamaica took place this past weekend. The last time this happened was in early April 2017 when Caitlin Nelson and Travis Maloof passed away after choking at events in New Jersey and Denver.

March 24, 2026 at 8:20 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Africa, Fatalities | Permalink * Comments (1)

Irie FM reports that 37 year old Kerron Powell passed away after choking in a bun eating contest held in Jamaica yesterday.

March 23, 2026 at 12:33 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Fatalities | Permalink * Comments

Nela Zisser's apparance (as part of Team Australia) on the Japanese program "Dekamori Hunter" has been uploaded to youtube. Max Suzuki leads Team Japan.

March 1, 2026 at 12:44 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Japan, Max Suzuki, Nela Zisser, Television, Videos | Permalink * Comments

The episode of the "Behind the Bastards" podcast about George Shea originally recorded in February 2022 has been uploaded to youtube.

February 28, 2026 at 12:41 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Organizations, Podcasts | Permalink * Comments (47)

Reddit has a thread with over 100 comments about the health hissues Takeru Kobayashi's discussed in the Netflix documentary: "Hack Your Health - The Secrets of Your Gut".

February 14, 2026 at 8:40 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Health, Kobayashi (小林尊) | Permalink * Comments (14)

A competitive eater who just ate 36 hot dogs was a patient on last night's episode of HBO's hospital drama, The Pitt. Men's Health had a doctor analyse the segment. (Video clip).

February 14, 2026 at 12:15 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Health, Pittsburgh, Television | Permalink * Comments

Fat Shack has produced a video about its Fat Shack 5K Challenge held in Fort Collins on January 10. Molly Schuyler won the cotest.

February 12, 2026 at 8:03 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Fort Collins, Molly Schuyler, Prizes, Videos | Permalink * Comments (1)

MLE Chowdown: Ham N Eggs

February 8, 2026 at 9:14 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Spike TV, Videos

I have uploaded Spike TV’s MLE Chowdown: Ham N Eggs from 2008 to X. Hard boiled eggs contest | ham contest | ham results announcement. (The program got a copyright violation on youtube).

During halftime of Super Bowl XLII on February 3, 2008, Spike TV televised two Major League Eating contests that were recorded in Las Vegas in October 2007. The first competition was hard boiled eggs and featured eaters ranked outside the top 10. The undercard field: Erik Denmark, Chris Abatsas, Micah “Wing Kong” Collins, Allen “Shredder” Goldstein, Arturo Rios Jr., Eric “Steakbellie” Livingston and “El Toro” Jimenez.

The second televised competition was ham. The field was
Joey Chestnut, Pat Bertoletti, Tim “Eater X” Janus, Tim “Gravy” Brown, Rich LeFevre, Hall Hunt, Juliet Lee (RIP) and Juris Shibayama. Takeru Kobayashi withdrew due to jawthritis; he appears as a spectator at 5:55.

Even though the telecast had 863K viewers, a record for a Spike TV eating contest, Spike TV did not sponsor any more Major League Eating events. Ham N Eggs would be the last non-Nathan’s hot dog MLE competition televised on a national cable network.

Comments (2)

NFL on CBS has a video in which Pro Bowlers are asked what food they would choose for an eating contest.

February 6, 2026 at 8:04 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Male Athletes, Videos | Permalink * Comments

Curt Richy produced a video about Takeru Kobayashi and his relationship with Major League Eating focusing on his estrangement from the organization in 2010.

January 31, 2026 at 9:31 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Contracts, Kobayashi (小林尊), Nathan's History, Videos | Permalink * Comments (1)

Saturday's World Bagel Eating Championship in Las Vegas will be livestreamed on Triller TV. The page for the broadcast has already been set up.

January 28, 2026 at 1:47 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Las Vegas, Television | Permalink * Comments

A 2012 episode of "Hell's Kitchen" in which Joey Chestnut faced off against the chefs in a chicken wing eating contest can be viewed on the Kitchen Nightmares youtube channel.

January 24, 2026 at 12:43 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Joey Chestnut, Television, Videos | Permalink * Comments

Nathan's Famous will be acquired by Smithfield Foods, which was sold in 2013 to Shuanghui (later renamed WH Group) a Chinese conglomerate listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The following year, Smithfield became the sole meatpacker and distributor for Nathan's Famous. (press release) update A Smithfield spokesperson stated the company plans to continue the eating contest.

January 21, 2026 at 11:01 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Business, China, Nathan's Hot Dog Contest | Permalink * Comments (26)

USA Network announces that "Everything on the Menu" starring former WWE star Adam "Braun Strowman" Scherr will return for a second season of 12 episodes. He will be accompanied by additional diners in this season, included WWE wrestler Alexa Bliss.

January 15, 2026 at 11:31 pm by ojrifkin · More posts about:Male Athletes, Television | Permalink * Comments

Abema has an interview (select English subtitles) with Takeru Kobayashi about his development of a hot dog made with Japanese Wagyu beef. He hopes to release the frankfurter by his birthday, March 15, and aspires to export it to the United States. (article corresponding to the video) update The Wagyu beef hot dogs will not be Kobayashi's first attempt at a frankfurter line. In 2013 he launched "Kobi Dogs", which was the food item for his July 4, 2013 eating competition

January 2, 2026 at 12:40 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Japan, Kobayashi (小林尊), Merchandise | Permalink * Comments

Carlos Cerasomma passed away after choking while competing in a hands-free watermelon eating contest held at a resort in Sao Pedro, Brazil. None of the resort's staff offered assistance and a guest attempted CPR without success. (Portuguese article)

December 31, 2025 at 1:18 am by ojrifkin · More posts about:Fatalities | Permalink * Comments (1)

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