2008 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest

**Shinobi128** · 04 Jul 2008, 12:51 PM

Former hot-dog-chomping champ hungry for new title

By SARA KUGLER

Associated Press Writer

Takeru Kobayashi, left, of Japan poses for photographs with last years hot dog eating champion Joey Chestnut, of San Jose, Calif., during the weigh in news conference for the Nathan's Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest Thursday, July 3, 2008 in New York. The contest will take place Friday July 4, 2008 in the Coney Island section of the Brooklyn borough of New York.

He's gone from hot-dog top dog to underdog. Renowned competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi is aiming to chomp his way back to the top of the annual Fourth of July hot dog eating competition on Coney Island after a disappointing three-dog loss last year shattered his six-year winning streak.

And setting any records this year is going to be even harder, after organizers shaved two minutes from regulation time after it was recently revealed that the original competition in 1916 was just 10 minutes long, instead of the 12-minute limit used in recent years.

Richard Shea, one of the founders of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, said organizers of the Coney Island showdown discovered the timing discrepancy in a pamphlet from around the time of the earliest contest.
Eaters will get the same amount of time their frankfurter forefathers got in order to "restore the contest to its original length and maintain its integrity," Shea said.

The diminutive 30-year-old Kobayashi - a legend on the surprisingly serious competitive eating circuit - managed to scarf 63 dogs and buns in 12 minutes last year, three fewer than the winner, up-and-comer Joey Chestnut, a 24-year-old Californian who outweighs him by more than 80 pounds.

It was a devastating defeat for Kobayashi, of Nagano, Japan, who had ruled the Coney Island frank fight since 2001.
Shea said some competitors had grumbled about this year's shorter time limit, but said he thought veteran eaters might still be able to break records because participants in last year's contest ate a greater percentage of dogs in the first seven or eight minutes of the contest than in its final moments.

Last year Kobayashi said he was suffering from some physical ailments, including a tooth problem and a sore jaw, that may have hampered his performance.

This time, he "can simply not be counted out," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a pre-competition rally and weigh-in on Thursday.
Weighing 128 pounds and dressed in basketball shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops, Kobayashi posed for pictures while flexing his muscles and holding a hot dog and bun.

Chestnut, the 2007 champ, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, followed him to the scale and topped out at 210 pounds.

The two foes are among 21 competitors in Friday's showdown, including a pizza cook from New York City, a fishmonger from Chicago and a 110-pound mother of two from Maryland.