Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest Shortened to Ten Minutes
The famous July Fourth hot dog eating contest at Nathan's in Coney Island will be shortened this year from 12 minutes to 10. Major League Eating, the organization that runs the event, says it discovered random notes and scribblings in a "trove of numerous old items and ephemera" at the original Nathan's stand in Coney Island that implied that the contest's traditional length was actually 10 minutes.
"The issue is history, and the preponderance of the event suggests that the contest was always 10 minutes," said George Shea, chairman of the MLE, in the Brooklyn Paper. All qualifying rounds of the 2008 circuit tour will follow suit and become 10-minute competitions, and the change will most likely be permanent.
Given that current world champion Joey Chestnut beat out six-time champ Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi last year only in the last few minutes of the contest, does shaving off those last two minutes dramatically change the playing field? We talked to Major League Eating media manager Ryan Nerz about to find out.
"Kobayashi was neck and neck with Joey Chestnut throughout the contest [last year]," Nerz said. "If you asked the top four eaters, they'd tell you that the last two minutes are often the least productive. They're usually just worried about whether they're going to finish."
Would anyone stand to benefit from the change? "Pat Bertoletti might be salivating a bit because he's fast out of the gate," Nerz said.
The bigger question: How do you account for the older 12-minute records in the new 10-minute-contest world? Nerz said that, assuming the 10-minute duration is adopted permanently, he didn't see any way to square the two. So Joey Chestnut will always hold the 12-minute record of 66 hot dogs and new records would be set in 10-minute standard bouts.
Guess those eaters will have to scarf down those hot dogs a little faster this year if they want to trump Chestnut's 66 dogs and buns.
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6 Comments:
Ten minutes seems pretty arbitrary to me. EatFeats reports that back in the 1970s the contests ranged from 2 to 5 minutes. Why not change it to that?
Raphael at 10:37AM on 06/11/08
This reminds me of the current debates with the Triple Crown title. Maybe three stressful races over the course of five weeks is too grueling for the horses, just like an extra 2 minutes is too rough for a human being shoving down hot dogs uncontrollably.
Erin Zimmer at 11:27AM on 06/11/08
Neither 10 nor 12 minutes will suffice. Only an HOUR can truly determine the champ!
bobbob at 1:20PM on 06/11/08
Right on, bobbob! Where do they get off calling this "extreme eating?" I think it should last the whole of July 4th weekend.
Kerosena at 4:02PM on 06/11/08
I love hot dogs, Nathan's or otherwise but whenever I see clips of these events on the news I get the urge to puke.
RichardCrystal at 4:16PM on 06/11/08
Sounds like the 12 minute hot dog record will be fitted with an asterisk, ala Roger Maris' 61 home runs.
gb944 at 11:17AM on 07/04/08