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Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 68.237.124.94 (talk) at 03:05, 22 July 2004 (→A list of contestants (and their personal bests) culled from various news sources). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs hosts an annual hot dog eating contest at the site of their first restaurant at the corner of Surf and Stillwell avenues in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York. According to oral history, the contest has been held every year since 1916 except for 1941 (as a protest to the war) and 1971 (as a protest to civil unrest). The contest is usually held at noon on July 4, Independence Day, and lasts 12 minutes. In 2004 the contest began at 12:40pm presumably because ESPN was covering the event live for the first time. The competition draws many spectators and worldwide press coverage as well as the occasional protest from The VivaVeggie Society, a vegetarian advocacy group.

In June, 2004 a 3 story high "Hot Dog Eating Wall of Fame" was erected at the site of the annual contest. The wall lists past records going back to 1984 and has a digital clock which counts down the minutes until the next contest.

Two days before the event is the "weigh-in and certification ceremony" hosted by the mayor of New York city and representives from Nathan's Famous and IFOCE (The International Federation of Competitive Eating) at City Hall Park in Manhattan.

The Nathan's contest has been featured in the documentaries "Red, White, and Yellow" (1998) "A Hot Dog Program: An All-American, Culinary Cruise Through Hot Dog History" (1999) and "Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating" (2004)

The rules

The IFOCE has overseen the contest since 1997 when the federation was formed. Rules used in the early days of the contest were likely different, but are largely lost.

Today, roughly 20 contestants stand behind a 30-ft-long table with hot dogs and drinks. Condiments are optional and usually not used. Whoever eats (and keeps down) the most hot dogs (and buns) in 12 minutes is the winner. Partially eaten hot dogs count and the granularity of measurement is eighths of a hot dog. There have been controversies but the IFOCE judges' word is final.

Winners receive a trophy, the coveted "bejeweled" mustard-colored belt (of "unknown age and value" according to George Shea co-founder of the IFOCE), and a "year's supply of Nathan's hotdogs" (actually, two cases). There is no cash award. The belt is currently on display in Japan.

Contestants need to win one of the qualifier contests held at various locations worldwide in order to compete. A noted exception is William "The Refrigerator" Perry, who competed in 2003 as a celebrity contestant without prequalifying. He stopped eating 5 minutes into the competition having eaten just 4 hot dogs and buns. George Shea stated on July 1st, 2004 at a ceremony following a showing of Crazy Legs Conti's documentary that the celebrity contestant experiment will likely not be repeated.

The Japanese domination

This eating contest had been a national favorite since its beginning. However, starting in 1996, Japanese eaters took away the prize every year except for 1999. In comparison with most of the top contestants of the U.S. who are tall and fat, Japanese contestants are usually very thin and not that tall. But they are breaking the records almost on a yearly basis. Despite of their collective will to take back the prize, most U.S. contestants could not even come close to Japanese records. The best non-Japanese competitor, Sonya K. Thomas, is 21.5 hot dogs behind the #1 record holder Takeru Kobayashi. Even among Japanese contestants, Takeru Kobayashi is untouchable. No one has even matched his worst showing of 44 hot dogs in 2003.

These Japanese contestants are sponsored by TV Tokyo's (テレビ東京) TV Champion (TVチャンピオン), a competition show started from 1992. TV Champion is a weekly TV program whose subjects has been mostly food-related (sushi championship, fast-eating championship, kids' cooking championship ...).

The Japanese dominance was sometimes overwhelming, for example, in 2000, the first, second and third places were all taken by Japanese contestants (Kazutoyo Arai, 新井和響, 25; Misao "Beast" Fujita, 藤田操, 24; Takako Akasaka, 赤阪尊子, (female), 22).

Tactics

Each contestant has his/her way to eat hot dogs. Takeru Kobayashi, for example, pioneered the "Solomon Method" at his first competition in 2001. His trick was to break the hot dog and bun in half and eat the two parts at the same time. Kobayashi does a little hip-wiggling dance while he eats, which lead to speculations that it was part of his technique, but he insists he was just getting into the music. Anyway, table manners are not a part of the game.

Because buns absorb water, some contestants prefer to drink as little as possible. Others dunk their hot dogs (or just the buns) in water and squeeze them to make them easier to swallow.

Eating the hot dogs and buns separately (called "Tokyo style" or "Japanesing") was a once popular technique, but is possibly too slow by today's standard.

A partial list of winners

  1. Mike "The Scholar" Devito
  2. -
  3. Ed Krachie
  4. Hirofumi Nakajima (中嶋広文) (23 1/4 hot dogs) (World Record)
  5. Hirofumi Nakajima (24 1/2 hot dogs) (World Record)
  6. Hirofumi Nakajima (19 hot dogs)
  7. Steve Keiner (20 1/4 hot dogs)
  8. Kazutoyo "The Rabbit" Arai (新井和響) (25 1/8 hot dogs) (World Record)
  9. Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi (小林尊) (50 hot dogs) (World Record)
  10. Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi (50 1/2 hot dogs) (World Record)
  11. Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi (44 1/2 hot dogs)
  12. Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi (53 1/2 hot dogs) (World Record)

A list of contestants (and their personal bests) culled from various news sources

  • Godfrey Bertelsen (England)
  • Dale Boone (USA)
  • Larry "Bad Little Doggie" Butler
  • "Kid" Cary DeGrosa, The Las Vegas Lothorio (NV, USA)
  • Brian Goldfarb
  • Syd "Mongo" Goldstein (NY, USA)
  • Gerta Hasselhoff (1950's)
  • Ron Koch (USA)
  • David Kondik
  • Rudman V. Libnitz
  • Stan Libnitz (USA) (1930-38)
  • David "Moe Ribs" Molesky
  • Andrew Rudman (USA) (1930-38)
  • Marcus Steinhoff (GERMANY)
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