I don't really consider this a sport although I will admit that it does take training and the people who routinely win the thing do not look like people that you would presume would be capable of winning and eating contest. We would think that the people who would be the best at eating would be massive fatties but almost all of the time, the best competitive eaters in the world are actually people that look pretty fit. The guy who is apparently the best ever at it, looks like he could probably to triathlons if he wanted to.
I'd heard of this contest that takes place on Coney Island every year, but until now I never bothered to familiarize myself with the rules so I'll go ahead and give you the Cliff Notes version of them right now.
- You have to eat as many hot dogs and buns as you possibly can in 10 minutes
- Condiments are banned are are utensils (who would do that anyway?)
- You can have drinks and you can dip the buns or dogs in that drink for up to 5 seconds before eating it
- if you vomit, you are disqualified
So how many hot dogs do you think you could eat in 10 minutes? For me, I think maybe if I was really going for it I could eat 5 or 6 but wouldn't enjoy it.
Well Joey Chestnut, who won this year, ate 70 and a half hot dogs. You read that right, 70 hot dogs in 10 minutes
So I was wondering how this is even humanly possible especially by someone that looks like he probably weighs about 75 kg or 160 lbs. It turns out that the people that get good at this are genetically special for the most part, but they also "train their stomach" over long periods of time but not with hot dogs or fatty stuff. They normally will do it with very large salads and other somewhat healthy stuff. Also, in an interview with several competitive eaters, these guys are committed to a healthy lifestyle that involves daily exercise and lifting weight. Who would have guessed?
Joey Chestnut is so dominant that he has won the title in NYC 17 times and has won 9 out of 10 in the past decade. His one loss in the past 10 years was because he was disqualified due to accepting a sponsorship from a hot dog brand that competes with Nathan's hot dogs and I guess that is understandable. Only one person has ever defeated Joey in an actual competition.
So what about the other competitors? They train as well and one of the guys on the stage who won the contest last year in Chestnut's absence was meant to put on a good show for the belt. Well it wasn't even close. 2nd place finisher Patrick Bertoletti managed to eat a paltry 46 hot dogs... lol
I was surprised to find out that this "sport" has betting odds just like any other sport and I wonder how it is that they are able to prevent any sort of abuse. Maybe they don't even try since it is so obscure.
In the women's division the top scorer was well behind the men with 33 hot dogs and her nearest competitor had 22 and 3/4 dogs in 10 minutes.
I don't know how well I would do in this but I think I probably wouldn't try. If I did really go for it, I think I would be one of those people that gets disqualified for throwing up.