hot dog eating competition

It may not be in the Olympics — yet — but competitive eating has become one of the world's fastest-growing sports. Last month, as many as 1.5 million people tuned in to ESPN to watch Joey Chestnut beat Takeru Kobayashi in Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest. According to the Major League Eating spokesman Ryan Nerz:

At the big eating events you have normal guys who get up and do this thing well, beat a bunch of people, and all of a sudden they have a camera shoved in their face. They get a whole new group of friends, a blog, a MySpace page, fans. It very quickly becomes their identity, and it transcends their former identity as a waiter at a pizza restaurant, an accountant, or whatever.

The profile of a typical competitive eater has also evolved in recent years. The demographic has changed from the overweight, blue-collar male champions to trimmer, younger, white-collar competitors that include men and women. Many competitors believe in the Belt of Fat theory — that a skinny build allows the stomach to expand with less difficulty than if it were surrounded by a constricting layer of fat tissue.

Have you or would you ever try competitive eating? For some recent records in the world of competitive eating, read more

The excitement was incredible this morning at Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Competition. The reigning champ Joey Chestnut and the Japanese firecracker Takeru Kobayashi faced off in a shorter — 10 instead of last year's 12 — minute competition to see who could eat the most hot dogs. For the first time in history, after the ten minutes, there was a tie: both Chestnut and Kobayshi, who eat at basically the same pace, had eaten 59 hot dogs.

What happened next was a dog off: whoever could eat five more hot dogs the quickest would win. Although it was neck and neck, Joey Chestnut was victorious and walked away with the coveted mustard belt. When ESPN asked why he had won, Chestnut remarked,

It's fourth ofJuly and you can get through something like this. It came down to who needed it more, he wanted it but I needed it.

Anybody that needs to win a hot dog eating competition seems a little crazy to me. If you missed the competition be sure to check out the video: read more