The Las Vegas Review has a short writeup with three pictures of Saturday’s Big Daddy Burger contest. The Las Vegas Sun has a longer article with one picture.

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Here are the full results of Saturday’s 9 pound Barrick/Big Daddy Burger contest at the Plaza Casino. Thanks to Ray “The Bison” Meduna for the information, who also judged that event. I would appreciate it if someone could tell me what the last name of 13th place finisher Eric D. is. Congratulations to all competitors and officials for a very successful contest.

Update 1/25 4:14 pm Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane has a first person account and some pictures on his blog.

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Thanks Bubba Yarbrough for the results

In a recent comment on her website, Sonya Thomas stated she intends to represent the 3 billion+ women on earth by injecting a more deadly venom into her male prey. Sonya definitely lived up to that claim today at the 9 pound Barrick / Big Daddy burger contest at the Plaza Casino in Las Vegas. Her time of approximately 27 minutes was almost half the 48 minutes she needed to finish last year’s contest (and is similar to her almost doubling her amount in last month’s meatball contest.) Las Vegas residents performed well at the contest, with Rich LeFevre and Ron Koch comprising half the top four.

Updated 10:02 KVVU has a video of an in studio contest yesterday between Rich LeFevre, Ron Koch, Hall Hunt and Joey Chestnut online

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This forum thread states that the only member of the Plaza Casino “Wall of Fame” to have completed the 9 pound Barrick/Big Daddy burger as of October 2004 was a slender woman who is apparently not Sonya Thomas. (Since the finisher looks somewhat like Sonya, she is apparently not Carlene LeFevre either.) I would appreciate it if someone going to the contest could verify if this claim is true.

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The new poll question asks who will win the nine pound Big Daddy Burger at the Plaza Casino in Las Vegas Saturday. (I am assuming that Joey Chestnut will compete, but I have not seen any definite announcement that he is expected to appear.)

Previous poll results: preferred length of eating contest

10:01 – 15 minutes -> 33%
5:01 – 10 minutes -> 29%
30:01 – 1 hour -> 22%
15:01 – 30 minutes -> 6%
1:00:01 or longer -> 6%
2 minutes or less -> 2%
2:01 – 5 minutes -> 2%

Total Votes: 51

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The IFOCE announced today that the only “marathon” event on its slate, the nine pound Barrick burger contest, will be held in January at the Plaza hotel and casino in Las Vegas. Sonya Thomas considers the Barrick burger her hardest contest ever and the only contest in which she utilized all her stomach capacity. She ate the bun first last year but plans to eat the meat first the next contest.

In this forum thread, a Florida resident, swtpup, boasts about his 119 pound girlfriend’s eating ability and it is suggested that she try the Barrick burger as a suitable test for her appetite on their next trip to Las Vegas.

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In this blog entry, collegiate bodybuilder Britt Miller describes her meals on a trip to Las Vegas, which included 24 ounce prime ribs with all the trimmings and frequent trips to the buffets.

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3rd round Italian salad 7 minutes
Sonya Thomas over Ron Koch, Tim Janus over Rich LeFevre, Cookie Jarvis over Badlands Booker, Kobayashi over Sam Vise. Rich LeFevre did not enjoy much hometown advantage, getting upset by Tim Janus who rebounded from a moderately disappointing performance at Nathan’s.

Sonya finished her second 2 pound salad as time expired, beating Ron Koch handily. Kobayashi essentially quit as he had built up a big enough lead. I am not sure if he quit before finishing his second salad, if he did then Sonya can claim a world record for Italian salad as she appeared to be the only competitor who finished two salads.

Sonya’s feature was essentially a repeat of the profile from Nathan’s in which she wore a witch outfit.

Semi Finals Potato skins
Sonya defeated Tim Janus rather easily, 53 skins to 44 while Kobayashi destroyed Cookie Jarvis with 72 skins. When asked what Janus needs to do to move into the elite, Sonya said he needed to expand his stomach capacity. Given Sonya’s increasing capacity, Janus is up against a moving target.

Potato skins should probably be judged by weight and not number as potato size is quite variable.

Finals 6 pound tailgate platter 15 minutes
Sonya was beaten pretty easily by Kobayashi, who came close to finishing two platters. She was really struggling at the end. The platter was difficult to eat due to the diversity of food items on it. Sonya tried to sort of make a stew out of the items, but it did not make that much difference. It was hard to follow the contest as it jumped from the start to the end and it did not give when the first platters were finished. I think the tailgate platter was the only contest item which contained meat.

A parody of the Michelob Ultra commercials, in which a man and woman compete in something like roller blading and then get hydrated by drinking a low carb beer could be made in which Kobayashi and Sonya chow down and then relax after the competition drinking a Michelob Ultra to reduce the amount of calories they consume. (I wonder how Sonya’s metabolism affects how her body processes alcohol.)

The next chance for Sonya to face Kobayashi will probably come at the Crystal burger championship if Kobayashi chooses to defend his win there.

A good showing for Sonya, defeating four talented competitors in a wide array of food items despite disappointment at the end. If she could practice on a ESPNZone tailgate platter, she might have been able to devise more effective techniques. While the 2005 US Open of Competitive Eating and Nathan’s hot dog contest have shown that the current distance between Kobayashi and Sonya is considerable, they also made it apparent that there is an undeniable gap between Sonya Thomas and whoever might be competing for third.

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Bigbrian.org now has the second round results up. Sonya Thomas advances to the second round eating a US record 11 pounds of spaghetti in 14 minutes, defeating Oleg Zhornitskiy. (I feel full after eating a half pound of spaghetti.) Carlene LeFevre was defeated by Ron Koch.

Kobayashi ate 13.5 pounds of spaghetti, setting a world record. I think that this (11/13.5 = 81.5%) is the best result percentagewise for Sonya vs. Kobabyashi and continues her trend of improvement (2005 Nathan’s 37/49 = 75.5%, 2004 Krystal 46/69 = 67.7%, 2004 Nathan’s 32/53.5 = 59.8%).

(update July 30 12:21 AM) beautifulbrian.com has 2nd round results up with some pictures (but none of Sonya) (he claims Sonya consumed 10 pounds of pasta).

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Results and pictures of the first round of the US Open of competitive eating have been posted at beautifulbrian.com Sonya and Carlene (1 picture of Sonya) both won easily. The most notable upset was Joey Chestnut. If I am reading the brackets correctly, Sonya will face Oleg Zhornitskiy and Carlene will take on Ron Koch in round 2.

Update 9:50 PM Better formatted results, but no pictures can be found at bigbrian.org

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I planned to make an entry listing links to articles about and results of the first day US Open of Competitive Eating, taped earlier this month, but this article on Jed Donahue was the only thing I could find. It is surprising that ESPN would cover an event for three days straight in prime time and not bother to promote it or carry the results. Retroactive good luck to Sonya and Carlene.

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