krystalsquareoff.com has the roster for tomorrow’s qualifier in Nashville. Ranked eaters expected are:

Humble Bob Shoudt (IFOCE #5)
Erik “The Red” Denmark (IFOCE #12)
Jim Hamrick (IFOCE #27)
Kevin Carr (IFOCE #31)

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The Tennessean has a preview of Sunday’s Krystal qualifier at the Tennessee State Fair. “Humble” Bob Shoudt the only expected entrant listed. Shoudt believes he can set the world Krystal record. Shoudt will attempt to break Joey Chestnut’s 2 minute record on Saturday at 11 am

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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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It has been over a week since the July 3 goldenpalace.net BBQ ribs contest in Memphis won by Dale Boone and results for that event have yet to be posted on the IFOCE website. The new poll question asks what you believe the reason for this delay is.

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from commercialappeal.com:

GoldenPalace.net World BBQ Eating Championship, Memphis TN, Tom Lee Park

1. Dale Boone, 2.93 lb in 8 minutes, $1500
2. Loren “Bubba” Yarbrough, 2.4 lb, $1000
3. Larry “the Legend” McNeil, 1.43, $500

Dale has started a myspace site

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The Memphis Commerical Appeal reports that a hot wing eating contest sponsored by Frank’s Red Hot will be held Friday at 5pm at the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest along the Memphis riverfront. The prize was not listed, but last year’s contest awarded $150 and was reportedly had trouble getting enough entrants, so Mid-South eaters might want to look into this event.

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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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From IFOCE.com:

Patrick Bertoletti 30 burgers
Don “Moses” Lerman 26 burgers
Shawn Kessler 25 burgers

All qualifier winners:

Joey Chestnut and Loren “Bubba” Yarbrough are the wild cards and Takeru Kobayashi returns as defending champion.

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IFOCE.com has a full list of the expected competitors in the Knoxville Krystal qualifier Sunday. The ranked members of that roster are Don “Moses” Lerman, Patrick Bertoletti and Kevin Carr. Cookie Jarvis does not appear on the list, so he will not make the finals since Knoxville is the final qualifier. Patrick Bertoletti would probably be favored, but he might be handicapped by competing in the Verizon Voicewing Buffalo wing finals the day before.

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The Memphis Commercial Appeal has an article about Sunday’s Krystal Square Off qualifier at the Mid South Fair. The majority of the article is about a Baylor medical student who competed after evacuating to Memphis to avoid Rita. Tennessean Sam Vise finished in first place with 33 burgers. Thomas Petrowski was 3rd with 22 burgers. (2nd place was not listed)

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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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