Hot Dog, It's the 4th.

Posted July 3, 2008, 10:50 pm in Sports by Growing Bolder


The 4th of July. Fireworks, family, flags, and the super bowl of pigging out. Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest has become a must-see event for millions of American's. If you've never seen it, check it out today at noon live from Coney Island, New York on ESPN.

ESPN will treat it like it's game 7 of the World Series. That's half the fun. The production and the manufactured drama will be over the top. For the first time ever it will be broadcast in high definition.

The world's very best competitive eaters will all be there but it will come down to just two. Takeru Kobayashi of Japan is the Michael Jordan of hot dogs. He won the event 7-times in a row before American Joey Chestnut stunned the sport last year taking not only the title but also the world record. This is Joey celebrating his big win.

Chestnut slammed down 66 hotdogs -- including the buns -- in 12 minutes. He won the coveted Mustard Belt, $10,000 and the respect of competitive eaters everywhere. Kobayashi, competing with an injured jaw, could only manage 63 dogs to set up this years highly anticipated rematch.

The competition is so big that Online gambling sites take more bets the hot dog eating contest than they do on all of the July 4th baseball games combined. In case your interested, the odds makers have Chestnut a prohibitive 5-6 favorite.

Calorielab.com assigned a nutritionist to the story who determined that the winner will consume nearly 20,000 calories and 1,280 grams of fat in a matter of minutes. That's more than a week's worth of calories, 7 times the recommended daily limit for cholesterol, 20 times the daily limit for total fat, 25 times the limit for saturated fat, and two and a half weeks worth of sodium.

The rules are simple. The dogs are grilled and then cooled. Condiments are optional. Drinks are permitted and most competitors choose water to wash the dogs down. In fact, most dunk the dogs and buns in their water to make them easier to swallow. When time is up, any hot dog that's still in the mouth counts, as long as it goes down and stays down. A "reversal" -- a polite name for throwing up -- means immediate disqualification.

Competitive eating is mostly a young mans sport but not entirely. 63-year-old Rich "The Locust" LeFevre finished 8th last year and will be back again this year. LeVevre is not a hot dog specialist but is nearly unbeatable in other events. He once ate 6.3 pounds of asparagus in 11.5 minutes to set the world record. He holds the world record for birthday cake (5 pounds in 11 minutes, 26 seconds), Chili (1 gallons in 10 minutes), corn dogs, pizza, smoked port, Spam (6 pounds from the can in 12 minutes), Tex-Mex rolls, and jalapenos (247 in 8 minutes).


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