Chestnut proved his win last year was no fluke. He is the true champion of the world. I doubt anyone would have ever believed that Kobayahi could be beaten, and yet it has now happened twice…..His reign is now over.

USA! USA! USA!

The announcer and score-card girl are REALLY into it.

How did this become such a big event? The people behind it must be marketing geniuses. There is so much publicity from this it is ridiculous. There will be lots of discussion around the water cooler on Monday.

Is techcrunch trying to be a tabloid?

Didn’t think I had to worry about a spoiler for the hot dog eating contest by visiting TC. Love that you’re covering it Eric but you did ruin my afternoon date with Tivo

How scary is this…. 64 hotdogs = 19,766 Calories and 1,286 grams of Fat! Do these guys purge after the contest?

Wow, this is totally relevant to techcrunch! what is happening here? It’s like bizarro techcrunch lately.

Joey Chestnut’s from the bay! SJSU SPARTANS!

that is fuggin disgusting.

i bet you could reconstitute about 16 cow anuses from those 64 hot dogs, assuming that 1/4 of every “all beef” hot dog is made of cow anus. but it is pretty cool how these guys are able to head right over to the drain-o toilet clogging contest afterward.

This crap was playing in a restaurant while I was trying to eat a nice tasty non-hotdog filled omelette. And now its on TECHCRUNCH!?!? How do I get away?

I had the pleasure of attending this year’s event. The salt content of 64 hot dogs is roughly 1.5 ounces. And, according to one official the caloric intake was closer to 30,000…

It was definitely a nail biter to say the least. Everyone at work was nervously glued to the T.V set during the entire event. Some guys actualy lost a fair amount of cash, betting that Kobayashi would regain the title.

We saw the whole thing - it was hilarious! Almost as fun as the Mermaid Parade two weeks ago.

We are still there, tonight will be a massive Fireworks display.

The weather has been perfect so far this summer - always in the 70s

ok… here it comes, the killjoy posting so please delete freely.. I just think in this day and age eating contests seem a bit strange.

Techcrunch…hot dogs…Techcrunch…hot dogs…tech…food.

Sorry, I don’t get the connection. What the heck is this post doing here?

“TechCrunch, founded on June 11, 2005, is a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies. In addition to covering new companies, we profile existing companies that are making an impact (commercial and/or cultural) on the new web space, as well as cover hot dog eating contests.”

I can’t help but I always feel disgusted every time I come across these “who can eat more” sort of competitions. By the same token African people should organize “who can eat less” contests where the winner is the contestant who survives without food for longer.

I don’t want to sound like your average self-appointed, self-righteous anti-American advocate but people please stop doing this. It’s not funny even if you don’t live in a country where food is not (yet) a luxury and there’s plenty of places on this world where that’s not the case.

Back to the topic, what relevance does this have with technology?

Just wanted to share this… How hot dogs are made.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HYcSf41O2aA

I will *never* eat a hot dog again.

I’m sorry but really, i don’t understand this kind of contest. Are you aware millions of people around the world don’t eat even 1% of theses hot-dogs per day ?
It’s maybe a tradition for you but today, you would be very smart if you stop this waste and correct this bad image you give to the world.
I know, I’m not American and that is why I don’t understand you but, just think a little…
Happy 4th of July America.

joey resemble michael arrington

Eat those hotdogs infidels. While you swallow that juicy meat we are using the money you send for oil to swall huge chunks of your financial institutions and corporations.

By the time you wake up, the big hotdog of America will have been swallowed whole by the great Muslim nations.

Your stomachs will be distended and you will feel a sharp pain in your gut unlike anything ever felt. You will vomit all over yourself.

they could probably die from this

C’mon, we can see obesity forming habits all over the net, I come here for tech news…..what is happening to TechCrunch lately?

Many people do the funny thing just to get popularity and at the end make money…Ha..ha..

Nic

Guys, its July 4th, theres no tech news. Calm down, TC isn’t becoming a tabloid.

next year in the bay area they will be doing this with veggie dogs

one of the sponsors will be whole foods

Found some great video here:

http://www.yardbarker.com/eati.....tle/285860

#22 …

I agree. Once somebody dies or gets deftly ill from this event, its over. Until then, its cool.

And BTW — for all you blokes who are hating on this post and why TC is posting on this — STFU.

DISGUSTING ……

@28, this is a tech blog, not a lame reporting outlet such as cnn. If I wanted to read about this kind of stuff, I would look elsewhere, but not TC. TC is becoming less relevant, not only because of the biased reporting, but also due to coverage such as this story.

In terms of marketing, Kobayashi was the best thing to happen to this contest.

When he first won everyone was blown a way. How did this thin guy eat so much?

And what’s more the fact that a Japanese national beat us at our own game?! What’s more American than hot dogs on July 4th?

It was like the car-wars all over again.

So the marketing department had a field day with this, looking for the next great-American-hope to bring the title back!

I feel that if Chestnut keeps winning it’ll be harder and harder to spin the marketing in the coming years. We need another “challenger and underdog” story.

the announcer looks bias

he was so in a rush to declare the american the winner, as soon as he was a fraction of second to finishing the 5th and final hotdog

I’m not saying automatically that Kobayashi should have won - but i think he’s still superior by a margin over Chestnut

This is exactly what’s wrong with ameria, stop stuffing your fat faces for ten seconds and serve a purpose please,

i’m always surprised that these men are not really FAT…

great , they are realy awesome…
but they are not fat…

don’t loose the focus, what’s next, Britney?

What a Shame.

In a some places of the world people are dying from hunger and in the western world we make hot dog competitions.

What a Shame. How low we have got

an entertaining post, no need to complain that it’s not about technology…

I come for the articles and I stay for the hilarious comments

I got to see such a contest a few years back and it was totally insane. I dont know how they do it. The winner in the contest I saw had to tip the scales at 400 lbs. I dont know how these skinny dudes do it.

JT
http://www.FireMe.To/udi

You could almost predict Kobayashi would not regain his title this year. He just didn’t seem to have that same fire in his eyes. That same degree of focus that led him to victory 6 years in a row. I think the increasing level of hoopla around this event affected his level of concentration.

Chestnut, on the other hand, was as calm and cool as ever. He seemed to be able to shut out the rest of the world from his mind and just focus on the task at hand. A well deserved victory, in my opinion.

Competitive eating is fucking disgusting and should be banned. With a significant portion of the world’s population underfed, it’s just one more reason that people hate the United States. Why the hell someone hasn’t stepped forward and made us the first country to ban it is beyond me. It is NOT a sport, is wasteful and disgusting.

For TechCrunch to cover it is both offensive and irrelevant. Leave crap like this to TMZ and Perez Hilton.

i as a european dont really see a point for this article on here?

Disgusting indeed.

Great athletes

I could go for some hot dogs right about now… perhaps not quite as many though.

Dear americain Friend, I propose for your 4th of July a Coney Island Hot-Dog VOMITING Contest

Actually you will use the same organ, plus it will be good for your health

Both will eat maximum hot dogs during the 10 minute contest and then the contest will go overtime to see who could vomit hot dogs the fastest.

I’m sure CNN will be happy to show us all the details and Kurt Dietrich’s wonderful Flickr photos will focus on marvelous details.

Also , not to mention , we want to advertise this here : http://library.thinkquest.org/...../stats.htm

Why was this on TC? As if we need a reason to write about hot dogs on the 4th of July.

But the point, for those of you who need one, is that the best coverage of this event was not on CNN, but on Flickr.

Im just glad an American won. Way to go Joey way to represent.

This is one of the few things Americans take pride in, that an American can eat more than smaller Japanese guy….

When you compare the size of the guys, you have to wonder how the smaller one can even keep it up and be champion for so long…but then agian how come those fat fucks can’t eat as much?

I really wouldn’t give a shit who wins, I would just like tos ee someone hurl that shit back up on the audience.

I rather 5 hotdogs could to eat