Competitive eater Joey Chestnut, a native of California, defended his top world ranking by slamming down 380 shrimp wontons in eight minutes to capture the Biggest Eater competition held in Singapore this past weekend.
Takeru Kobayashi of Japan -- Chestnut's biggest rival and the former top-ranked eater in the world -- finished second, eating a measly 370 wontons.
It's about time the world recognized America's dominance in a state fair event that we have manufactured into a sport.
The U.S. controls the International Federation of Competitive Eating, the governing body that's responsible for naming Chestnut as the world's top eater. According to the IFOCE rankings, Kobayashi (currently ranked third) is the only international eater who has managed to crack the top 20.
In addition, it took almost a decade but we've overcome our issue with the band of fat that was literally keeping America's competitive eaters from increasing their intake. Popular Science examined the situation in 2003, explaining why thinner guys always seemed to win eating competitions. The theory, introduced by competitive eater Ed Krachie, was that the fat prevented American competitive eaters' stomachs from expanding as far as that of someone like the lithe Kobayashi, who captured six straight Nathan's hot dog eating contests before being bested by Chestnut in 2007.
Today's American competitive eater is no longer likely to be a 400-pound wrecking machine; instead, he's a guy who grew up watching our eating titans on television and now has a strict training regimen.
Conclusion: America's not fat -- we're just a nation of competitive eaters who have yet to find a competition we want to enter.
[Image via Flickr: eKavet]
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