(Thanks Laura Flynn) Brian Seiken’s new episode was not the only Las Vegas themed competitive eating program last weekend. There was a hot dog eating contest on NBC’s “Las Vegas” Friday in which Sam (Vanessa Marcil) competed. This was not Sam’s first eating contest; she competed against “Cookie” Jarvis in 2004. The episode will be rerun on cable on TNT on March 8.

There was also an immunity challenge eating contest on Survivor Thursday. Pig snouts were one if the items consumed.

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Brian Seiken has posted the latest episode of his television show, which features interviews with Las Vegas residents Ron “The Undertaker” Koch and El Toro. There is also a visit from Rabbi Abramawitz and a clip of sportsradio host Jim Rome (who has criticized Sonya Thomas, Joey Chestnut and Kate Stelnick) being attacked by former Rams quarterback Jim Everett.

In other updates, Brian Seiken has Crazy Legs Conti’s appreciation of Boston Celtic Dennis Johnson, a tribute to Super Paul Barlow Jr and a report that a new medication has resolved his acid reflux issues and should help him return to his previous level.

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Domenico Alesi has uploaded a gallery of pictures from the Nugget Rib contest in Reno last month.

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The Reno Gazette Journal has a report on last night’s rib eating competition listing the top four finishers:

1st: Joey Chestnut, $2,500, 4.5 lbs. of ribs
2nd: Pat Bertoletti, $1,500, 4 lbs.
3rd: Rich LeFevre, $750, 3.8 lbs.
4th: Jed Donahue, $250, 3.3 lbs.

Updated 3:57 pm IFOCE.com has full results. It is interesting they are noting Joey’s 6 month non-Kobayashi winning streak when no attention at all was paid to Sonya’s 7 month (Wing Bowl to Buffalo Wing Festival) streak last year.

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The Reno Gazette Journal has a preview of the West Nugget Rib Cook-off and Eating Contest. The eating contest will run from 5 to 7 pm pacific (8 to 10 pm eastern).

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The Hungover Gourmet has a blog entry about meeting Sonya Thomas at the eBay conference in Las Vegas.

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The following video captures were taken from the video of the goldenpalace.net grilled cheese contest on the contest page at goldenpalaceevents.com after the contest timer expired (around 2:20 – 2:26 in the video)

It is obvious from the video captures that Sonya has a significant amount (probably 1/4 to 1/2 a sandwich) outside her mouth after the contest is finished. I assume that the man with sunglasses and a notepad is a contest official and he apparently took no action after he saw the amount of food outside Sonya’s mouth.

If the chipmunking rule is going to be interpreted liberally, then Sonya has every right to take advantage of that interpretation, but IFOCE should clarify the details of that rule so other eaters can take advantage of it as well.

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Erik Denmark has a video of Eater X’s grilled cheese exhibition & Andrew Lane has a gallery by El Toro on their blogs.

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from dogsarefunyes.blogspot.com

ArenaBowl XX FanFest, Las Vegas, NV

1) Joey Chestnut 47 grilled cheese sandwiches – world record
2) Sonya Thomas & Pat Bertoletti 37 – tie
4) Rich LeFevre 35
5) Chip Simpson 33
6) Ron Koch 20
7) Erik “the Red” Denmark 17.5

Other results – not necessarily complete
Jason “Erbavore” Erb 15
El Toro 12.5
Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane 10
Doug “Cerberus” Ecks 8

Tim Janus 18 in five minute exhibition against Arena Football player

Mike Justice 9 in amateur contest

updated 10:00 pm

updated June 11, 9:47 am – Marketwire has a press release and video about the contest.

updated 7:34 – Andrew Lane has a trip report (which is a must-see for females who have ever wondered what men’s bathrooms in Las Vegas look like)

Updated 8:43 PM – KESQ has an AP article about the contest

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Tomorrow a potential $100,000 will be awarded if an amateur eater from Las Vegas eats more than 36.5 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes. The new poll asks if you believe if a feat is possible for the best amateur eater in North America.

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Here are various links I have come across in the past month or so:

Erik Denmark radio interviews: June 2, June 5
Kevin Carr’s interview with Pat Bertoletti (about 50 minutes)

Interview with David “Brickhouse” Braunstein & Matt Streett before Baltimore crabcake contest
Las Vegas Sun preview of Nathan’s qualifier (has only Ron Koch quotes I am aware of)
2005 US Open of Competitive Eating writeups: Round 1 Round 2 Round 3-5
Rocky Mountain News column
Another Natsuko “Gal” Sone fan blog

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Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane has posted a trip report of his expedition to Las Vegas to compete in the Nathan’s qualifier on Thursday (he finished with 12.5 hot dogs)

beautifulbrian.com has a gallery of the Las Vegas contest courtesy of El Toro

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In this oogui forum, Japanese competitive eating fans react to the news that Joey Chestnut ate 50 hot dogs in the Las Vegas qualifier.

Much & Fast has a blog entry about Chestnut’s performance

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Hall Hunt googled Josh Heald, who was listed as a screenwriter who ate 11 hot dogs in the Las Vegas qualfier in the IFOCE report, and found he had written a movie about competitive eating for Disney called “All You Can Eat.” The movie is supposed to come out later this year, but apparently it has not been cast yet.

Articles about studio pickup and director hiring for the movie.

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from IFOCE.com Congratulations to Joey Chestnut who set an American record of 50 hot dogs at the Nathan’s qualifier in Las Vegas today. Chestnut’s performance is better than 2 of Kobayashi’s winning marks and equivalent to one. Rich LeFevre set a personal best of 30.5 and Ron Koch did 15.

Note: The IFOCE report says that the previous American record was 42 when it is actually 37 (set by Sonya Thomas last year.)

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While Brian Seiken thinks he might have seen George Shea at a wedding recently, “The Chicken” not only saw IFOCE president Rich Shea at a Las Vegas Club, he/she received a personal invitation to the Big Daddy Burger contest which was accepted and wrote a blog entry about the experience.

Correction 11:47 pm, Rich Shea and not George was at the nightclub, thanks Ray Meduna

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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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