I will be teleblogging the broadcast of the Sheboygan Bratfest. It looks like the Hall of Fame induction ceremony will run long.

4:08 – the Reggie White induction is still going on, the whole broadcast will be shown on ESPN2 at 7

5:12 – the telecast has been completely pre-empted. I will try to watch the rerun on ESPN2 at 7.

7:03 – The broadcast opens with a history of the bratwurst festival. The weather report reads “You never sausage a nice day”

7:05 – Footage of Kobayashi working out is shown. Rich Shea predicts 2 eaters will break 50 brats. Sonya is interviewed and said her not being a favorite means less pressure for her.

7:09 – The announced attendance is 5,000. The ways to qualify are listed, which do not say the top 5 ranked get an automatic invitation. Footage of Tim Janus and Crazy Legs Conti at the qualifier is shown.

7:13 – The world’s largest grill is shown and the preparation method is explained.

7:19 – More bratfest history. A sausage making machine is shown. The first festival was held in 1953.

7:21 – Bratwurst techniques are explained. Chip Simpson is dispayed even though he did not qualify to my recollection.

7:24 – Profile of Joey Chestnut. He drinks a lot of water and has a “capacity run” at least once a week.

7:30 – The top 5 money winners are listed. Kobayashi’s earnings are listed at $100,000 even though I think he has not done any Japanese contest.

7:31 – El Toro, Conti, Bertoletti and Janus are briefly interviewed.

7:34 – Introductions, Thomas Denure (Georgetown, WI) , P J Kim (Princeton undergrad), Damon Serignet, Tim Brown (Chicago), Jim Hamrick, Frank Wach, El Toro Jiminez, Erik Denmark, Crazy Legs Conti (wearing a cheese necklace), Rich “the Locust” LeFevre, Tim Janus (carrying handlebars, claimed that Jennifer Annison gave him a gift basket because Vince Vaughn is an eating fan), Bob Shoudt, Pat Bertoletti (“You Talking to Meat” sign), Joey Chestnut, Takeru Kobayashi, Sonya Thomas (wearing the same orange shorts from Nathan’s).

7:45 – the contest starts – no running total (or even a clock) is displayed 🙁

7:47 – the running total is shown – Sonya is 5th , Kobayashi has a 1 – 2 lead over Joey

7:48 – quarter in Koby, Joey, Pat, Bob & Sonya is top 5

7:49 – 6 minutes left, Kobayashi’s lead is now 5/6 brats

7:50 – more helmetcam from P. J. Kim

7:51 – Kobayashi is at 36 at the halfway point

7:52 – Koby 41, Joey 34 with 4 minutes left

7:53 – Rich Shea claims Sonya has a mental block

7:54 – P.J. Kim is interviewed down 42 to 7

7:54 – 25% left Koby 47, Joey 38 Janus has passed Sonya for 5th

7:55 – Sonya is back in 5th, Koby’s lead reaches double digits

7:56 – Final results Koby 58, Joey 45 (who must “learn to love himself” to win Krystal), Pat 38

7:59 – a big check is passed to Kobayashi – he says he could eat more

8:00 – Joey is interviewed – he says he didn’t prepare for this contest like Nathan’s and says he will win Krystal.

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A clip of Jenny Drumgoole’s documentary about Sonya Thomas at Wing Bowl 13 has been uploaded to youtube. If the documentary will not be released theatrically or direct to DVD, I hope all segments will be available on youtube like the “Chili Dawg” documentary.

(I do not have broadband this week, so I have not watched the documentary and am not sure if it is safe for work)

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The Johnsonville Bratwurst contest from Sheboygan, WI will be televised on ESPN starting at 4 pm eastern (I think the contest itself will be tape delayed) The program will last an hour and it will be interesting to see what fills the remaining 50 minutes. The contest will be rerun twice on ESPN2.

From Yahoo TV

2006 Brat Eating World Championship
ESPN Aug 05 04:00pm
Special/Sports, 60 Mins.

* 2006 Brat Eating World Championship – Final, ESPN2 Aug 05 07:00pm
* 2006 Brat Eating World Championship – Final, ESPN2 Aug 06 02:00am

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Jason Fagone is the guest blogger for Powell’s Books of Portland and he has posted a segment about an imprisoned competitive eater that was excised from the published version of Horsemen of the Esophagus

Fagone has also posted his top nine cities in the world for competitive eating. Other cities/regions that a case could be made for include the Bay Area, CA (home of Joey Chestnut, Eddie “Bozo” Miller & original home of the LeFevres), Long Island (if considered separate from NYC), Amarillo, TX and Clearfield, PA.

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The episode of Cheap Seats in which the Sklar brothers provide commentary on the 2004 Nathan’s hot dog eating contest will be rerun tonight at 11:30 pm and 2:30 am eastern (8:30 and 11:30 pm west coast)

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The Baltimore Sun has an article about last weekend’s episode of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me which lists the questions and multiple choice answers for the competitive eating questions asked on that program. One of the answer choices should have been “a black bear and Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota”.

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Sports Illustrated NFL writer Peter King trashes Nathan’s hot dog eating contest in his blog-type column this week. The commenters on this Football Outsiders forum thread generally disagree with King’s opinion:

If Peter King really cares about the malnourished kids in Coney Island, he should be campaigning for the NFL to save the lavish free buffets for the press that have him at a solid 200+ and he can walk around the town giving out box lunches. Otherwise he should shut the **** up.

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Charlotte.com reports that this weekend’s episode of NPR’s quiz show, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, asks several questions about competitive eating. The answerer gets them all wrong. The show will be available on podcast if you miss it.

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(Thanks Jason Fagone) Today’s BBC World Service podcast has a segment about competitive eating with interviews with Fagone and the LeFevres.

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A clip of last Wednesday’s weekly eating contest between Natsuko “Gal” Sone and Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota has been uploaded to youtube. The challenge is to eat 6 kilograms of curry in under 15 minutes.

The blog of the restaurant where the challenge was held has an entry about the contest.

A youtube clip of some of Takako Akasaka’s contests is also available on youtube. She competes against a champion German eater in consuming 6 meters of frankfurters in Berlin and has another 6m sausage contest against Misao Fujita. She also participates in a wedding cake eating contest wearing a wedding dress.

This blog entry from April 2005 has an interesting comparison between Food Battle Club and TV Tokyo’s oogui programming.

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The INHD website says that Don “Moses” Lerman’s attempt at the bologna record has been moved to 5am (eastern) July 15. Next weeks show is still scheduled for 6pm Saturday.

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The leftwing British newspaper The Guardian has a review of Horsemen of the Esophagus, which has been retitled Insatiable for the European version. ( It is actually more a critique of Jason Fagone’s failure to adopt the reviewer’s opinion on competitive eating than it is of the book itself).

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The California Literary Review gives 4 out of 5 stars to “Horsemen of the Esophagus”

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The Sheboygan Press reports that ESPN will broadcast the finals of the Johnsonville Bratwurst contest on August 5 at 4 pm Eastern. Kobayashi will compete in the contest. Press Release

Updated 1:34 PM – registration for the 20 person lottery for the last five entrants to that contest is now open.

7/13 1:31 AM – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article

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From TV in Japan A clip of Natsuko “Gal” Sone eating a huge hunk of meat and then an Everest of ice cream has been uploaded to youtube. The total amount of calories in the consumed food is listed at 40,000. The courses take place in different restaurants.

Updated 7/13 12:26 – The ice cream mountain is apparently a regular menu item that retails for 20,000 Yen.

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The New York Times’ article on upcoming food movies says that “All You Can Eat,” which will be written by Las Vegas Nathan’s qualifier entrant Josh Heald and produced by Craig Perry (“American Pie”), will begin production this fall.

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Several video clips of Food Battle Club have been uploaded to youtube. Food Battle Club is the Japanese competitive eating program with the most expensive production values.

• Kobayashi & Takako Akasaka race down a sushi table
• Kobayashi drinks a liter of ice tea (and finishes 2nd), then eats sushi
• Kobayashi drinks 25 iced coffees in 5 minutes. This contest is preceded by an “auction” in which eaters announce how many iced coffees they can drink.
• Unknown eater drinks water bottle in under 5 seconds

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The Scotsman’s review of Horsemen of the Esophagus (which has been retitled Insatiable for the European edition) compares the Sheas to organ grinders and eaters to their animal employees. The reviewer claims that Eric “Badlands” Booker (who only makes a brief appearance) and “Coondog” O’Hara (sic) are major characters in the book, so it is debatable how closely he read Fagone’s work.

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Media Life Magazine’s article on sports broadcasts television ratings claims that viewership of Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating contest increased to 1.15 million from 660,000 last year.

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The long excerpt of “Horsemen of the Esophagus” from the May issue of Atlantic magazine has been moved to the free section of that publication’s website.

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At 10pm (eastern) The History Channel will broadcast an episode of American Eats about the history of the hot dog. There will be some information about Nathan’s hot dogs and competitive eating.

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ESPN360 has made the full video of the entire Nathan’s finals available at http://broadband.espn.go.com/ivp/splash?ceid=2509202
(At least it is available in theory, it hangs up on me before any footage is displayed. Maybe it will work better tonight when traffic is lighter.)

While waiting for the video to display, you can vote in ESPN’s poll asking what item could you most easily eat 54 of.

From Food Fighter Fan: cyberfyber has uploaded video to youtube he filmed of the contest and yesterday’s weigh in. His contest footage gives an idea of what was going on with all the eaters.

Contest Part I
Contest Part II
Weigh-In Part I
Weigh-In part II
Joey-Kobayashi stare down

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An online ad for “Horsemen of the Esophagus” makes a prediction about the Nathan’s finals.

Jason Fagone will be interviewed on WNYC at 10:40 on July 4. This interview can be listened to online.

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Thanks Wyatt Earp. A video clip of Kobayashi, Joey Chestnut and Tim “Eater X” Janus in a one minute Nathan’s hot dog eating contest on Good Morning America this morning can be viewed at http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2142642 Joey Chestnut was declared the winner with 7.5 hot dogs in one minute, but Kobayashi’s and Tim’s totals were not announced (and apparently not counted). George Shea stated that Kobayashi would attend the Johnsonville bratwurst contest in Wisconsin.

If that video clip does not satisfy your competitive eating on Good Morning America fix, video clips of Kate Stelnick from January are available: Segment 1, Segment 2

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Thanks Andrew skinnyboy Lane. The 2006 Nathan’s finals will be rerun 6 times on ESPN and ESPN2 next week and the 2005 finals will be broadcast on July 3 and 6. A full list of time is available after the jump. Times are in the Eastern Time Zone.

Read the rest of this entry »

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