The website for Foreign Policy has an interview with IFOCE chairman George Shea that focuses on the international aspects of competitive eating. The European competitors for the 2006 finals will be from Sweden and the Czech republic.

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The first Eats of Strength episode will be rerun 3 times next week:

• Eats of Strength
INHD, Tue Jul 04 06:00pm EDT
• Eats of Strength
INHD, Fri Jul 07 01:30am EDT
• Eats of Strength
INHD, Fri Jul 07 03:00pm EDT
• Eats of Strength
INHD, Sat Jul 08 06:00pm EDT

Don “Moses” Lerman is expecting big things from his Eats of Strength appearance.

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sportsnet.ca has a positive review of Eat This Book

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Advertising Age has an article about the difficulties IFOCE has experienced obtaining mainstream sponsors like national fast-food chains.

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justmyshow.com has a podcast of an interview with George Shea, chairman of IFOCE.

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(Thanks Brian Subich) In Monday’s episode of Cheap Seats on ESPN Classic, at 7:30pm and 11:30 pm eastern, the Sklar brothers will offer commentary on the Alka Seltzer 2005 US Open of Competitive Eating.

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Eaters interested in qualifying for the 2007 Nathans’ finals should definitely consider appearing on Brian Seiken’s video podcast to boost their chances. 6 primary guests attempted qualification and 4 succeeded, including first-timers Pat Bertoletti and Brian Subich. Here is the list of interviewees:

#1: Ed “Cookie” Jarvis – did not attempt to qualify
#2: Ray “The Bison” Meduna – did not attempt to qualify
#3: Pat Bertoletti – qualified
#4: Allen “Shredder” Goldstein – qualified
#5: Don “Moses” Lerman – failied to qualify
#6: Charles Hardy – did not attempt to qualify
#7: Kevin Lipsitz – did not attempt to qualify
#8: Tim Janus – qualifed
#9: Brian Subich – qualified
#10: No official interview
#11: Dale Boone – Failed to qualify

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Mike Woolridge of the UC Berkeley School of Information has written a paper titled Comparing Apples and Oranges: Normalizing Competitive Eating Records across Food Disciplines, which calculates and compares the rates of ingestion for 23 records on the IFOCE website.

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As of 12:30 pm, “Horsemen of the Esophagus” was being prominently advertised in the sports / athlete gossip blog Deadspin

Updated 11:27 pm Here is the NY Times review that Jason Fagone took offense to.

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Urban Honking announces that its report on the Nathan’s finals on the Fourth of July and all subsequent competitive eating coverage will move to True Fan, Urban Honking’s sports blog.

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(Thanks Ian Hickman) The video for the song “Round and Round,” which appears in the soundtrack for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, sung by Far East Movement has a headband-wearing Kobayashi impersonator, along with brief scenes of a female hot dog eating contest.

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Loren “Bubba” Yarbrough has emailed me that he appeared with Larry McNeil and Dale Boone on Fox 5 to promote the Atlanta Nathan’s qualifier. Yarbrough has uploaded a video clip of that appearance to youtube. Dale Boone does look notably lighter than he did last year.

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Kobayashi has started his blog with two entries. One is a report from the Nathan’s Tokyo qualifier, the other announces that he will appear on a baseball card.

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Liz announces that she will participate in Saturday’s Shoo Fly Pie contest, but not as an eater.

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The Philadelphia City Paper reprints Jason Fagone’s letter to the New York Times criticizing his book review.

Fagone has also set up a myspace site with excerpts from “Horsement of the Esophagus.” The page accepts comments if you have something about that book you would like to say.

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The Scorecard section of this week’s issue of Sports Illustrated has a short article about Joey Chestnut which follows:

Joey says in a comment to this post that he was misquoted and that he can do 40 and not 50 hot dogs in a 9 minute training session. Joey also says the author excised his quotes praising other IFOCE members.

Weenie Boast

America’s new hot-dog-loving hope wants to restore the U.S. to competitive-eating glory.

Like any great sporting achievement, what Joey Chestnut pulled off on May 18 in Las Vegas required skill, drive and near-perfect-conditions. He had enough water. His body behaved exactly as he had hoped. And all his hot dogs were cooked exactly to his liking: not too hot, not too cold. In 12 minutes Chestnut, 22, a civil engineering major at San Jose State, downed 50 wieners at a qualifier for the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4. Chestnut shattered the U.S. record by 13 and set up a Coney Island showdown with the world-record holder, Japan’s Takeru Kobayashi.

A victory by Chestnut would return glory to these shores after six consecutive Nathan’s wins by foreigners, a sore subject for U.S. competitive eaters. “This is America, where people love to eat,” says Chestnut, who finished third at Nathan’s in 2005. “For us to keep losing on a day with some meaning, it’s almost humiliating.”

Chestnut knows he must improve to beat Kobayashi. He says he’s increased his capacity and speed (he can now consume 50 hot dogs in nine minutes) by practicing with a kitchen timer. A win might help curry favor with U.S. competitors, who resent his quick success. “A lot of the veterans hate me,” says Chestnut, who began eating competitively in 2005. “I’m sure I would make a few new friends.” Maybe he could take them out to dinner. -A.D.

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If you have ever wondered what exactly is urbanhonking.com, this article from Willamette Weekly will help inform you. Liz Kellermeyer has a captioned picture and praise for her (and Krista’s) article on the (February) grilled cheese contest in New York City.

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Takeru Kobayashi has opened a web site at takeru-kobayashi.com (Translated version) The site has a blog, but no entries have been added to it. Kobayashi lists his current weight at 75kg (165 lb), about the same weight he received a major scare from Joey Chestnut at the Krystal finals last November.

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The Wall Street Journal has an article on how Guinness is being challenged by alternate record-maintaining organizations including IFOCE. (Sonya Thomas is not the only woman from South Korea who can claim a world eating record)

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A review of “Eat This Book” by Ryan Nerz appears in MSNBC’s roundup of non-fiction books suitable for summer vacation reading.

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TV Tokyo has a program called “TV Champion” which tries to determine who is best in a particular field such as brick laying or eating. A program similar to “TV Champion” called “World Records” on the Nippon Television Network will be adapted into the program “Master of Champions” which will air this summer on ABC. The home page for “Master of Champions” does not say if any eating contests will be televised.

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Russell “the Black Hole” Blackwell, third place finisher in last Saturday’s Tempe Nathan’s qualifier, has started a blog at http://russellblackwell.blogspot.com/

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If the AICE leadership believes that they have been censored in the comments of this blog, I will post a link to whatever content on competitiveeaters.com they desire. (This will eliminate the possbility of impostors that is present with blog comments)

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The Journal News of Westchester County, NY has an article about competitive eating with quotes from Richard Shea and Tim Janus.

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A brief article about “Horsemen of the Esophagus” (more a description than a review) appears in the “Airplane Reading” box of the book review page of this weekend’s edition of The Wall Street Journal. (Article is not available online without subscription)

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