Will Leitch is the author of the novels "How happy"In"Time is in,“A contributing editor at New York Magazine and founder of the former Sport site Deadspin.A free weekly newsletter.
Look, I understand that the hot dog eating competition is a joke.Nathan's famous international hot dog competition represents the embodiment of the American Hucksterist -Gluttony, a nation with masses that makes his decadent abundance, truly real with a number of humanity.Certify that it never disgust, regardless of a friend or family member, I have Angue to see it every July 4 with me. But this does not prevent me and honestly not millions of other Americans to make it my central tradition of the Independence Day.
Part of it is the Vaudevillian view of the entire company, the freak show of the carnival barker that makes the Cuey Island setting so suitable.Why I see it because I find the competition - and the results of competitors - legitimate impressive.Shorter time than necessary, the microwave popcorn plays at your best.
That is why I was really sad to hear that Joey Chestnut for all your (pretty big) jokes, the biggest hot dog ever, who did not appear on this year's competition because of the NathanAn appointment he signed with impossible food, a rival company that produces a hot dog based on a plant.Is an undisputed Bummer.Do you see greatness?
To place the incredible race of Chestnut at the top of his sport in context, it is important to understand the story of Nathan's Hotdog eating competition.1979;The winner in 1981 was a man named Thomas Deberry, who, who,According to news items at that time, "11 hot dogs did in five minutes and then hurried with his family to participate in a barbecue."(This is something if I had just undergone a particularly dark period in my life, I think I had had this kind of geek show quality for decades-one year it was won by a 130 pound of Vesty woman who had never eaten a hot dog in her life beforeFor the starting gun, and another year of guardian Engelen took part in Curtis Sliwa (and wasn't half bad) - Until 2001, when everything changed forever.
That year an unknown Japanese man named Takeru Kobayashi appeared his first performance in the competition.reached 50 by introducing a new strategy to eat, the "Solomon method", which was involved with him the dog took out bowls, put sandwich in water and use the detat that the dog was washing.Van Drawing that day to mark how many hot dogs he had eaten.
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Kobayashi's performance in 2001 was so far unprecedented that the only historic Corollar I can think of is what Babe Ruth did in baseball.The had hit more than 27 homers in one season until Ruth appeared and began to break more than 50, then 60. Like Ruth Blein Kobayashi the Spirit of everyone, but more importantly, he informed other competitors about what was possible.
What had been a foolish distraction became a serious competition for the limits of human potential.Kobayashi's skills, started to close him.
I amVery proud to say that I was there, together with 30,000 othersDa Joey Chestnut OMSIDER Dethrone Babe Ruth van Competitive SpisingBy eating 66 dogs in 12 minutes, beating the Kobayashi of three dogs.Takes back these most American titles to eliminate a sport for the man who had changed the entire sport (as it is), has moved me and many in the crowd.Another now, I could, "people sang" u-s-a!USA!"I may have been one of them.
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This victory was followed by a race with dominance that surpasses Kobayashis: Chestnut won the title 15 in the next 16 years and only lost two dogs in 2015 to YouTuber Matt Stonie before he recovered to establish the early record of 70 next year.Register a maximum of 76 in 2021;A year later he won despite the fact that he shouldpush a demonstrator from the scene in the middle of the event.
Such a race - winning the first title of 23 and losing only one championship at all in the 40s - is unparalleled in American sport or another sport.of 17 years of absurd.
He was also preferred to win years weeks before the Super Bowl.Chestnut is on a race that has not been any other competitor in my life, and now, because of an ugly sponsorship match, it is taken away from him and all.What makes it do me?I want to have a change.
