Super Paul Bonebreaker Barlow Jr. has a gallery from Krystal Square Off III and the post party.

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Ernie attended the Krystal Square Off finals and wrote a blog entry and recorded the last 39 seconds of it from the audience.

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(Thanks Skinnyboy) In his blog entry about the AZ Fry bread contest, Andrew “Skinnyboy” Lane has a link to a direct video capture of the Krystal Square Off final (.ASF format, 11 MB).

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I will not be able to blog this afternoon due to other commitments. Krystal-lover will have a live blog of all the events in Chattanooga, not just the telecast, so I doubt my absence will be missed.

krystaladventure is a blog I just discovered which has some posts about the Square Off finals and qualifiers I you need some KSO material to read while you are waiting for the telecast to begin.

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The Chattanooga Times Free Press has a preview of todays Krystal Square Off finals. Kobyashi says his main bottleneck in eating Krystal burgers is removing them from their boxes.

Krystal-lover has some pictures from Friday’s press conference

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The USA Today TV Sports column has a section on the Krystal Square Off which says that Paul Page, who has appeared on several recent IFOCE broadcasts, will handle announcing duties for the Krystal Square Off III finals. Let’s hope that Page is correct in his assessment in the dangers of competitive eating versus auto racing.

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The Krystal Square Off odds on bodog.com have changed considerably since betting began. The current odds for the top 5 favorites:

Takeru Kobayashi 1/7
Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas 5/1
Chip “The Phenom” Simpson 11/2
Tim “Eater X” Janus 11/2
Joey “Jaws” Chestnut 4/1

The opening odds were:

Takeru Kobayashi 1/1
Joey “Jaws” Chestnut 3/2
Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas 7/3
Chip “The Phenom” Simpson 9/2
Tim “Eater X” Janus 4/1

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krystal-lover announces that a 2 minute Krystal eating contest for 4 2 person teams will be held before the main event. Teams will be chosen at random from people signing up during the pre contest festivities. The contest will be televised on ESPN2 and will offer the following prizes:

First Prize is $100/person
Second Prize is $50/person
3rd Prize is $25/person

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The Chattanoogan has the schedule for all the events to be held in conjunction with the Krystal Square Off Finals. The festivities will start at 2pm with a tailgating party. The contest will be broadcast live at 4:35 pm.

updated The Chattanooga Pulse also has a finals preview.

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(From krystal-lovers) Videos from the Chattanooga, Jacksonville and Nashville qualifiers are now available at krystalsquareoff.com The other qualifiers and Bob Shoudt’s 2 minute record attempt should be online in the near future. I am looking forward to seeing the end of the Atlanta qualifier.

Updated 12:30am – truefan has an Atlanta video and gallery – thanks steakbellie

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Krystal Lover’s blog and The Chattanoogan have galleries of Sunday’s Krystal Square Off qualifier where Sonya Thomas almost doubled the runner up by eating a personal record 62 burgers.

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KrystalSquareOff.com has complete results from today’s qualifier in Chattanooga. The top 3 finishers are:

1st-Sonya Thomas (62)
2nd-Chris Abatsas (32)
3rd-Shaun Kesler (23)

Sonya ties the US record set by Joey Chestnut in last year’s finals and beats her personal (and allover qualifier) record of 57 she set last year.

Updated 9:47 pm – The Chattanoogan has an article about the qualifier

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krystalsquareoff.com has the roster for today’s qualifier. Josh Neal and Jesse Crick won the prequalifier slots. The only ranked eater besides Sonya in the field is Nathan Kunce (#48). Shaun Kesler, who finished third in the Chattanooga qualifier last year will also attend.

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The Krystal lovers blog reports that Sonya will appear in Sunday’s Krystal qualifier in Chattanooga. She won that event in 2004 and 2005, winning last year’s contest by a single burger.

The preliminary qualifiers started today with Josh Neal having the best performance with 12 Krystals in 2 minutes. The calendar for the Chattanooga prequalifiers and qualifier lists the times the contests will be webcast.

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Liz has posted Claudine Ko’s article about her participation in the Krystal Square Off finals and Sonya Thomas at http://www.urbanhonking.com/digest/archives/2006/04/sonya_thomas_in.html A photo album of the pictures in the article is also available.

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(Thanks Loren “Bubba” Yarbrough & Tube Sock Destroyer) The May issue of Jane Magazine (page 140) has an article (not available online) about Sonya Thomas which also includes an account of reporter Claudine Ko’s training for and participation in the Krystal Square Off finals (via a sponsor’s exemption). The article has a picture of “Sister X” wearing her brother’s trademark makeup.

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Yahoo news has an AP article about Joey Chestnut’s near defeat of Kobayashi at the Krystal Square Off finals. After being tied at 60 Krystals with 37 seconds remaining, Kobayashi consumed 7 burgers while Joey Chestnut only managed one, which he blames on failing to immerse one of the burgers in water. Kobayashi claims he had difficulty moving his arms fast enough despite his muscularity.

A video of that contest is available on the article page.

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Bret Douglas has a very nice photo gallery of the 2005 Krystal finals. Sonya does not look extremely happy with her third place check.

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Krystal Square Off finals, Chattanooga, TN
1. Takeru Kobayashi, 67 burgers
2. Joey Chestnut, 62 burgers
3. Sonya Thomas, 56 burgers
4. Bob Shoudt, 51 burgers
5. Rich Lefevre 42 burgers
6. Tim Janus 41 burgers
7. Eric “Badlands” Booker 40 burgers
8T. Ron Koch 37 burgers
8T. Pat Bertoletti 37 burgers
10. Sam Vise 35 burgers

more complete results from beautifulbrian.com added 11/20 11:36 pm

For the first time in his competitive career, Kobayashi trailed for a longer period in a contest than he was ahead for. He was able to overcome a deficit in the final minute which at one point was six burgers. Kobayashi’s mark is two less than the 69 he ate last year.

AFP article about the contest
WDEF article about the contest

Pound for pound results:
1. Sonya Thomas 56 / 100 = .56
2. Takeru Kobayashi 67 / 170 = .39
3. Joey Chestnut 62 / 210 = .30

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(From IFOCE.com) Kobayashi weighed in at 172 pounds. His added mass is surprising as he blamed increasing his weight to the 140s from the 130s last year for his not breaking the record at Nathan’s in 2005. Kobayashi’s weight increase makes Sonya Thomas the world’s greatest eater pound for pound by a considerable margin.

A third wild card slot was added to the field, enabling Hall Hunt to compete. Jane magazine writer Claudine Ko will also appear thanks to a sponsor’s exemption.

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The UTC student paper has an article about a 2 minute preliminary Krystal contest open to UTC students only. Crystal Morris, the only female in the contest, managed 6 burgers. The best 10 eaters in Krystal preliminaries will advance to a second round contest whose winner will compete in the main Krystal contest.

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Sonya Thomas broke her 2 event losing streak Monday at the Chattanooga Krystal burger qualifer, defeating Joey Chestnut in her fourth epic battle with the rookie in the past month. Her total of 57 hamburgers beat Joey Chestnut by one burger and bested her mark last year by 11 burgers. Surprisingly, Sonya does not mention the contest results on her website.

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The University of Chattanooga student paper describes “eat-in” contests to be held over the weekend to select 10 Chattanooga residents to compete in Monday’s qualifier contest against Sonya Thomas and other top IFOCE eaters.

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