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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Larry “The Legend” McNeil has updated his rankings on his myspace blog. These rankings will probably be quite controversial for some people. It is difficult to see how Dale Boone can be ranked ahead of Pat Bertoletti after taking the results of the Atlanta Zoo qualifier into account.

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The website for the Krystal Square Off has been updated with information about the 2006 contest. The finals will take place on October 28, earlier than in previous years. The qualifier schedule will apparently be released on July 18.

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“Beautiful” Brian Seiken has started a blog at http://beautifulbrian978.blogspot.com/

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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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A myspace page has been set up at myspace.com/takerukobayashi. It is rather unlikely that this page was set up by the actual Kobayashi given his lack of fluency in English.
The profile lists Kobayashi as a Sagitarius, when Kobayashi was born March 15, 1978.

A myspace page has also been set up at myspace.com/sonyathomas This is listed as a fan page and not Sonya’s personal page, but that disclaimer is not very prominent.

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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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Liz and Krista are reporting from Coney Island for an Urban Honking liveblog (its times are west coast) Competitive eating coverage has moved from urbanhonking.com/digest to urbanhonking.com/truefan as announced.

I will be liveblogging (teleblogging?) the ESPN coverage in about 15 minutes.

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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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“Beautiful” Brian Seiken has resumed blogging at http://hometown.aol.com/beautifulbrian43/bulletin.html

Seiken has discovered a video of a woman on the Maury Povich show who is afraid of pickles. Perhaps some eaters scarred by the Carnegie Deli pickle contest share her phobia.

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USA Today has an article about Joey Chestnut including quotes from doctors about the medical aspects of eating 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes. The USA Today website also has a new picture of Joey with the AP article about him.

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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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