update Sept 3 Sonya Thomas did compete in the 2008 contest, which took place on September 6, 2008 and was the runner up to Colin Shirlow. V1NNY69 has a video of the results announcement.

update Sept 3 #2 Scotsman.com has an article about the 2008 contest.

Food Belfast has an article about Colin Shirlow, who received a Guinness record for oyster eating (233 in 3 minutes) in 2005 and claims to have defeated Sonya Thomas at the Hillsborough Oyster Festival in Ireland last year:

Last year saw the ominously named ‘Black Widow’ (pictured, left) being flown over especially for the competition from the US.

Sonya Thomas got the nickname because of her ability to regularly defeat men four to five times her size in competitive eating events. The 43-year-old holds records in some 25 competitive eating contests and set her sights on Shirlow’s crown.

“Her record sits at 350 oysters in 10 minutes [actually 46 dozen, 532] but with this record it says it has to be three minutes. The Guinness Book of Records specifically say you have three minutes. We paid for her to come across and on the Thursday night we were like two boxers.

Sonya Thomas could not have competed in the Hillsborough Oyster Festival, which takes place during Labor Day weekend, because she was at the Buffalo Wing Festival in 2009. Shirlow is most likely confusing Sonya Thomas with Linda Li, who competed in last year’s contest after winning a qualifier at the Ceili Cottage in Toronto.

PermalinkComments (7)

SkyNews reports that Barry Rigby ate a meat pie in 43 seconds to win the annual pie eating contest at Harry’s Bar in Wigan, England today.

The Wigan pie contest is probably the best publicized English contest. This year’s gimmick of checking for performance enhancing substances was noted by the BBC. (Gravy is listed as a performance enhancing substance). Pitch Weekly also had a blog entry about the contest (from Liz K)

update The Guardian, Daily Express and Manchester Evening Post have articles.

PermalinkComments (2)

A writer for the British newspaper The Guardian wrote an article about competitive eating in the UK after competing in a burrito eating contest. The article mentions Tim Janus’ medical examination and Don Lerman’s quote about suffering internal bleeding.

In other UK CE news, the BoingBoing blog has an entry about a breakfast challenge in Westhoughton.

PermalinkComments (3)

(from Ken Wong) RussiaToday has sad news from a pancake eating contest:

At a celebration of Maslenitsa or Pancake week ‘the fastest pancake eater contest’ ended in tragedy in the Kaliningrad Region, when the winner of the competition died as he prepared to accept his award.

Boris Isaev, 46, a resident of the city of Chernyakhovsk, climbed onstage to take the prize, but suddenly fell to his knees choking. Foam came out of his mouth and a few moments after he fell breathless.

RIAN.ru also has an article

This is the fifth death in an Eastern hemisphere eating contest since the start of 2008.

PermalinkComments (4)

• Krispy Kreme eating contest at Arkansas Harley Davidson tommorow, 1st prize is a $500 Harley Davidson gift certificate
• Taco eating contest for charity in England with four qualifiers
• Jelly doughnut eating contest on January 8 at Dick’s Last Resort in Myrtle Beach, SC in honor of Elvis’ birthday
• Chip Simpson is excited for 2009 now that he no longer has a “huge weight keeping me down”
• Dale Boone’s Apple Ugly victory makes the list of strange news of 2008 in Rowan County, NC

PermalinkComments (1)

Youtube has a news video about a vareniki dumpling eating contest held in Kyiv, Ukraine. A photo gallery of the competition is also available. Anatoliy Klepach won the contest by eating 90 dumplings in 7 minutes and was presented with a trophy in the form of a giant dumpling. The contest was held outside in the snow.

The caption contains the following information about a possible upcoming contest:

The real fan of Ukrainian cuisine is Alexander Gutmakher, organizer of the event. The first time he held this championship was in New York with the support of the Mayor. Next year he is planning to hold the Championship with Ukrainian and American teams.

The New York contest mentioned might be the 2002 pelmeni eating contest. The New York Times reports that Alexander Gutmakher has promoted events in New York City.

Korrespondent.net reports that Klepach’s next opponent will be Oleg Zhornitskiy, who has not competed in an IFOCE contest since the US Open of Competitive Eating in 2005

PermalinkComments (2)

• Report on the Wigan pie eating contest. The winner, Fred Wyatt, was 61 and took 56 seconds to eat his pie. No mention or picture of the oversized pies reportedly made by accident appears in the article.
• Pictures and video from Hall Hunt’s induction into the Jacksonville Krystal Hall of Fame
• “Furious” Pete Czerwinski is a semi-finalist in the Bodybuilding.com BodySpace spokesmodel search
• Clip of the bratwurst eating contest on Beavis & Butthead
  
• Tasha attempts to be the first local female to qualify for the Wing Bowl since Melissa “White Widow” Perzin competed in Wing Bowl 14.
• Pictures from two parties Kobayashi attended

PermalinkComments (3)

Metro.co.uk reports that the pies made for tomorrow’s meat pie eating contest at Harry’s Bar in Wigan, England have a diameter of 12 inches and a height of 3.5 inches. The original intentions were to use 12 cm by 3.5 cm pies, but no units of measurement were provided to the cook. The measurement mix-up expands the volume of the pies by a factor of over 15 (2.5 cm/ in.)^3.

This is not the first time that an issue affecting the contest has received a lot of publicity; a dog ate the pies that were to be used for the 2007 competition.

Youtube has a clip about another object constructed to improper specifications.

PermalinkComments

rockfm.co.uk reports that the World Pie Eating championship held at Harry’s Bar in Wigan (Manchester area), England next month will be webcast. Viewers will have to pay £14.99 ($23) to receive information on how to view the contest. The contest previously received coverage for scaling back from a timed format to a fixed amount of a single pie. Last year’s winner, Adrian Frost, took 34 seconds to finish his pie. ($23 per 34 seconds is equivalent to more than $1000 / hour)

PermalinkComments

• Gallery and full results from 2008 Wookey Hole Caves Big Eat
• Volvo from the movie Twilight awarded in pie eating contest held on the Tyra Banks Show. The episode will be broadcast on November 28.
• Report, gallery and video from Skinnyboy’s office pizza contest
• Video from another offfice pizza eating contest. Kim almost finishes a 26 inch pizza.
• Crazy Legs Conti authors a section of The Experts’ Guide to Doing Things Faster

PermalinkComments (13)