Joey Chestnut is a competitive eater from San Jose, California. On July 4th he won the 92nd Annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, beating six-time defending champion Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi by consuming 66 hot dogs and buns in twelve minutes. Jocelyn Noveck writes;
Watching these "gustatory gladiators," as the show calls them, brings a few basic questions to mind. Why do people subject themselves to this torture? More importantly, how do they do it (when most of us would get sick after, oh, four hot dogs or six waffles or a dozen ribs)? And is there any long-term harm?
The first question is pretty simple. Why do people do it? As with many things, the desire for fame and money. Prize money at some events can be $30,000 for the top player, and the Nathan's contest, for example, gets an hour of Big Event coverage on ESPN.
Still, there must be something deeper — the fiercest of competitive instincts — motivating Sonya Thomas, the most unlikely speed-eating champ you'll ever see. The woman they call the "Black Widow" weighs 105 pounds. Yet, she can consume one-sixth of her body weight — routinely defeating guys three times her size.
Some of these men are so big, "it looks like they have their own ecosystem," says the witty George Shea, who with brother Richard runs the International Federation of Competitive Eating. Thomas, in comparison, "looks like she couldn't finish a tin of cottage cheese." (Spoken like a man who probably never eats cottage cheese ... since when does it come in a tin?)
Thomas is an assistant manager at Burger King, which in terms of speed-eating training seems as good as it can get — kind of like Andre Agassi growing up on a tennis court.
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