Nikkan Sports reports that the magazine “Modern Weekly” is alleging that Tomoko Miyake did not actually consume all the food she appeared to eat in a Nippon Television program.

Tomoko will appear (briefly) along with the other competitors in the giant burger contest held earlier this year at the Clinton Station Diner on the History Channel’s “Evolve:Guts” at 11 pm and 3 am eastern tonight

update The Mainichi Shimbun reports that Nippon Television has apologized for the deception and attributes the inaccuracies to miscounting.

Tomoko Miyake addresses the magazine article’s claims in a blog entry which begins (according to Google Translation)

The weekly magazine article about the concern that everybody did deeply apologize for any inconvenience.

A look at the article, friends and fans worried about people from a lot of mail and messages encouraging words.

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• Roger Robinson finishes Sasquatch burger challenge 3 times in less than 2 months
• NYC falafel eating contest returns August 31
• Louisville, KY cheesesteak eating contest August 31
• MLE video game ranked at #14 in top WiiWare games
• Guinness World Record attempt hot dog eating contest in Reno today

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• Another review of the MLE video game
• Article mentioning Samantha Brown’s participation in the Italian sausage eating contest
• Ravioli contest in Providence Saturday
• A Taste of Hamburg (PA) eating contest August 30
• A possible European contest for “Furious” Pete: Pourcailhade La Fête du Cochon (PigFest) in Trie-sur-Baïse, France will have a boudin sausage eating contest on August 10

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A video clip of Tomoko Miyake’s DVD is available on youtube. The DVD was released on July 25 and is categorized as a gravure idol video so the clip may not be safe for all workplaces.

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A possible spoiler about the identity of the final “boss” character in the Major League Eating video game is available after the jump:
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• Myspace page for Billy “the Fridge”, winner of Saturday’s donut contest in Seattle
• Forest City, PA pierogi eating contest Saturday
• A more positive review of the MLE video game
• Long blog entry about the Singapore contest
• Bodybuilder / competitive eater Isabelle Turell wins a bodybuilding contest and gets engaged
  

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• Blog entry with a lot of pictures from the Singapore showdown
• IGN pans MLE video game
• Elgin, Iowa corn contest August 2, $100 first prize
• Cincinnati jalapeno cheese coney contest Wednesday, registration closes at midnight
• Skinnyboy reports that Anthony Bourdain’s appearance at the Big Texan will be televised on the Travel Channel on August 4
• Medina, Ohio hot dog contest Saturday
  
• List of all Queens dumpling winners
• Syracuse offensive lineman Ryan Durand challenges Big East clambake lobster record

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The Mainichi Shimbun reports that a media event was held to promote the August 9 release of the movie, Kamen Rider Kiva: The King of Hell Castle Natsuko “Gal” Sone, who will play a Medusa character in the movie, appeared with two other actors. Variety of Japan also has an article.

The blog for Dirt Productions reports that principal photography for Nacho Mountain has been completed, although the final contest scene has yet to be filmed. A myspace comment says the final scene will be filmed on August 23. A LehighValleyLive.com article about the movie says that the filmmakers hope to release the movie on the internet in January and also play at independent film festivals.

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MCall.com has a report on the competitive eating comedy “Nacho Mountain”, which began filming in the Allentown, PA area on July 19. The main eating contest scene was filmed on Friday. Joey Chestnut, listed as a co-star of the movie on IMDB.com, is not mentioned in the article, but it does report that the final food battle scene will be recorded in August, so he might appear in that scene.

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Tara has a blog entry about the beet eating contest held in Scranton, PA last Saturday to promote the release of “The Office” DVD game. Actress/producer Mindy Kaling participated in the competition. The Ladys of 102 blog has a report about Mary’s belief that she is the rightful third place finisher in the contest.

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OnlineGamer.jp reports that a game called “Battle Eating Sushi Gal” will debut. Natsuko “Gal” Sone’s name is not mentioned in the article, so she probably does not endorse the game. The game will be free, but might be for cell phones only. No link is provided for online play.

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Erik Denmark has posted a review of the Major League Eating video game to his blog. He is satisfied with his character’s appearance in the game:

My character has a fun look. My hair is super spiked; the bandana is obviously a signature of mine that I am glad they captured well. I like that my character is recognizable as me, in that the features do somehow look like mine (so I have been told) but also, some features are exaggerated, such as my elongated chin in the pre-match screen. I would obviously like my character to have more muscle mass and more capacity but okay reality gets in the way again.

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• Video of the end of the Apple Ugly eating contest (the trophy was a mounted toilet seat)
• Ian Hickman beats Elizabeth Canady in overtime at Bowie burger contest
• Detailed review of MLE game by Platform Nation
• Skinnyboy eats 8/9 of Big Texan 72 ounce steak
• Gallery of 2008 Philadelphia Nathan’s qualifier
• Picture of Samantha Brown at Italian sausage contest
• MissBusyLady describes her start in competitive eating fandom
• Juris Shibayama sends a letter to the editor about last week’s column (from Crawfish comment)
• Boston hot wing eating contest Thursday
• Donut eating contest in Pittsburgh Friday
• Full results for the Singapore qualifiers on MLE.asia
• Vietnamese sub eating contest in Ho Chi Minh City

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• Hall Hunt article in U of Florida student paper. Hall had a bad knee while he ran a marathon last Saturday. An article about Erin Andrews appears in the same issue.
• Crazy Legs Conti and Tim Janus appear in music video by Low Water (myspace)
• Wing Tut previews the contests he will MC this weekend. Samatha Brown of the Travel Channel might compete in the Italian sausage contest.
• MissBusyLady contemplates a Burritozilla attempt
• News items after May 8 removed from IFOCE home page
• Article about Randy Harrison, participant in the US Open of Competitive Eating
• WLOCE registration is open (from Crawfish comment)
• MTV’s video game blog has footage of the first two minutes of the MLE game
• Blog entry about Pauliesaurus challenge. The current prize is $250.

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WiiWare World has the first detailed post-release review of the Major League Eating video game which concludes:

Many people no doubt will get a kick out of MLE’s light-hearted and vaguely adolescent approach to competitive gameplay. It offers a unique blend of concepts wrapped around a somewhat distasteful premise and vulgar humour. But, most importantly, the core design works. It is surprisingly fun challenging your friends to virtual eating contests and the additional strategy offered by the power-ups keeps things interesting when they aren’t driving you crazy. The ability to turn off specific power-ups in order to recreate a standard eating contest would have been a nice option to have, but this was not to be. As it stands, the developers decided it was best to leave everything on the plate and invite gamers to accept a meal with perhaps one too many flavours.

6/10

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• NY Time City Room blog has a picture of Pat Bertoletti, Sonya Thomas and Bob Shoudt superimposed with faces from the Spook-A-Rama ride
• Epicurious’ list of food-based video games
• Topeka jalapeno contest report
• Nathan’s gallery by MissCharo
• George Hadary wins Dallas La Contena jalapeno eating contest
• Yelp reviews of Nathan’s finals

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Will Millender reports in his blog that he intends to audition for “The Biggest Loser” weight loss reality show. The next series will feature teams, so Will is looking for another competitive eater to pair with to record an application video.

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The first episode of “Hurl” will be televised on the G4 cable channel tonight at 9pm eastern. The foods in the debut will be macaroni & cheese and pumpkin pie and the activity will be human bowling. The episode will be rerun several times over the next two weeks.

“Hurl” leads off Entertainment Weekly’s list of the 22 most appalling shows in television history.

Other review and coverage:

• Boston.com review
• Newsday review
• CinemaBlend preview

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I will place reviews and other information about the Wii Major League Eating game in this post as they become available. The release time is scheduled at noon eastern.

Please place your gamer tags in the comments if you are interested in playing over the internet.

update Serious Eats has challenged other food blogs to online play.

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A press release reports that the Major League Eating Wiiware game will be relased on July 14 as previously mentioned in a Ken Hoffman column.

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Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics, attended the Nathan’s finals and has a short blog entry about that event with a picture of post-contest hot dog debris.

Kobayashi says he dined with an unnamed author who is probably Dubner before the Nathan’s finals and has a blog entry about meeting him .

Dubner says that competitive eating might be a topic of SuperFreakonomics. Will the IFOCE have Ryan Nerz write another book to counter that project?

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The Nathan’s finals will be rerun tonight on ESPN at 3am eastern. This is the only rerun that currently appears in the online TV schedules.

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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.

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A rerun of the last Friday’s Nathan’s finals will be televised on ESPN on July 11 at 3am eastern.

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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.
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