Posted on 07/05/2003 9:17:29 AM PDT by dighton
Japan’s champion hot dog eater has claimed his third consecutive championship win.
Takeru ‘Tsunami’ Kobayashi out-gorged competitors more than twice his size in the Nathan’s Famous Coney Island contest, downing 44 and a half dogs in just 12 minutes.
Kobayashi downed his frankfurters at the rate of one every 16 seconds in a display of gastronomic supremacy.
Once again his peers were left to fight for second place. Runner-up Ed ‘Cookie’ Jarvis trailed the champion by no fewer than 14 hot dogs.
The diminuitive 145-pound Kobayashi, of Nagano, Japan, employed his trademark ‘Solomon method’ - snapping the dogs in half before swallowing them - to outclass the other 19 contestants.
But he later expressed his disappointment at failing to beat his own record of 50 and a half.
“I feel sad I didn’t break it,” he said through an interpreter. “I came here to set the record.”
George Shea, spokesman for the event, couldn’t believe that Kobayashi was anything but proud of his performance.
“I’m shocked anybody would characterise this as anything short of stupendous. This is an athlete who still remains at another level than the rest of the competition.”
Celebrity contestant William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry failed to make any impression on the field.
The 410-pound former NFL star dropped out of the competition after just five minutes, with only four hot dogs finished.
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