Fair To Say

All of the pre-competition hype about this year’s Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest was around Takeru Kobayashi, the six-time champion who was knocked off last year by Californian nobody Joey Chestnut. Kobayashi suffered jaw problems - so-called “jaw-thritis” - in the lead up to the 2007 contest and was only defeated narrowly, leading many commentators to conclude that it was a formality for the Tsunami to reclaim what is rightfully his: the Mustard Belt for the world’s premier competitive eater.

What ensued in the 2008 Nathan’s competition was an epic sporting story, which may have only spanned 15 or so minutes of action but arced a complete storyline of master and challenger, hard-won respect, constant plot twists, and the closest of finishes.

There were mutterings in the lead up about challengers Patrick Bertoletti and Patrick Vandam, but once the eating was underway it was clear in the first three minutes of the ten minute contest that only Chestnut and Kobayashi could win. Chestnut - who in the last-minute TV interview before the start looked flustered and had a vein throbbing on his forehead that made him look like the Talosians from the Star Trek pilot episode - delivered on his stated strategy of going out hard, establishing a lead of about three dogs by the second minute. Chestnut’s energetic style made him compelling viewing, and for the first half of the contest he was looking the goods while jumping up and down, his face getting more and more ruddy with the exertion of working his thorax into contortions of digestion.

About halfway through, though, Kobayashi made his move. Starting out steadily and letting multiple younger opponents head him up through even the second minute, Kobayashi inexorably reeled in that three-dog lead until it was two, then one, then level. By the eighth minute Kobayashi had taken the lead, and it grew to as much as two dogs in a rapidly seesawing battle, made all the more volatile by the fact that dogs tended to be awarded in clumps of three or four at a time - the modern technique allows for consumption of the buns and sausages separately, usually done in groups.

One might have thought that Kobayashi’s measured strategy would have carried him through to a deserved victory, and that was certainly my thought with about 90 seconds to go. Competitive eating experts such as the strikingly handsome Paul Page often talk about the “wall” where the body just can’t take any more hot dogs, and although the fact that the competition had been curtailed from the traditional 12 minutes down to 10 this year, the increased starting pace meant that the wall still loomed as a prospect for those at the bleeding edge of the field. Chestnut, like a good sportsperson does, found another level. The contest seesawed in those last 90 seconds with both protagonists looking more and more pained. With 15 seconds to go the announcer yelled that both competitors had 59 dogs each, but neither man reached out for another dog in that time, struggling as they were to fit the three or four dogs they still had in their hands down their already strained gullets. As the crowd counted down to zero the two men still had their hands over their mouths, as the rules dictate they must while still holding food, to keep their 59-dog totals legal.

The judges conferred, scores were tallied and confirmed: we had a tie. A five-item “dog off” was to follow. As the two combatants digested the news, Kobayashi looked much the stronger man, with Chestnut almost staggering, his face as red as the mustard on the table, pieces of bun debris littering his chin. Kobayashi, always the stylist, sat quietly sipping his water and pacing himself for the decider.

The dog off was a simple affair, first to five wins. The victor didn’t have to swallow the dogs, just have the fifth one completely in his mouth. Chestnut looked like he was about to turn vegan, and all the momentum was with the Japanese legend. Come the hooter for the dog-off, Chestnut hoed into his work like a man possessed, nevertheless. Both men had slowed down significantly from the main event, and an early leader couldn’t be established. Things happened very quickly after it was announced that Kobayashi was the first to four - the TV announcers went bonkers, the 2,000-strong crowd’s volume lifted another twenty decibels… and in the middle of it all Joey Chestnut found something. Somewhere in his chest cavity, Joey Chestnut discovered a small but gaping void. Joey Chestnut’s oesophagus, rubbed raw by a constant river of barely-damp foodstuffs, swallowed one more time and left room for the final handful of organic material to be crammed in. Stretched long past breaking point, Joey Chestnut’s solar plexus twanged its way outwards just that little bit further to accommodate the last parcel of pig entrails.

Joey Chestnut is the well-deserving 2008 champion of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. If I was Kobayashi I’d be spewing right now - literally and figuratively - but there’s no question that Chestnut is a worthy adversary and he won it fair and square. I look forward to a long rivalry that approaches Ali-Frazier proportions. The sport is in good hands, and those hot dogs are in good stomachs.