Fulfilling the 'competitive eating' aspect of the about section, I bring to you the sad tale of Boris Isayev. The 48-year-old was celebrating Pancake Week in the Russian town of Chernyakhovsk. He decided to enter the town's pancake-eating competition. He won. He walked up on stage to accept the first place prize. He died. The town understandably went into shock. Wait, what?

The celebrations continued after Isayev's body was taken away in an ambulance, and a winter dummy was burnt in a symbolic farewell to the coldest months of the year.

[Source.]

Police have since uncovered evidence of a homicidal pancake chain-gang:

Your current and still reigning World Hotdog Eating Champion...Joooeeyyy Chestnuuuuut!!!

That's right competitive eating fans, Joey Chestnut has once again beaten former world champ Takeru Kobayashi (story + vid), in a battle of epic proportion. This was like Federer vs Nadal, Ali vs Fraser, or Lakers vs Celtics

After ten minutes of solid h­otdog eating (with beer) the two goliaths were tied on 59 hotdogs each. They then entered into a sudden death dog-off. The first man to finish five hotdogs would be champion and walk away with the mustard yellow belt. And when the dust (and probably vomit) settled Chestnut was that Champion.

Interestingly the time for the initial eating period was shortened from 12mins to 10mins after it was revealed that the original 1916 contest was only ten minutes long. This favoured Chestnut slightly as Kobayashi is known as a strong finisher as can be seen in this match report:

Chestnut quickly pulled ahead, with cheeks puffed as he crammed
hot dogs into his mouth. At one point, the 24-year-old Californian led Kobayashi 14 to 11. Kobayashi fell to third place, but ate his way back and the two went dog-to-dog in the final stretch. After a
frankfurter photo-finish, the judges decided it was a tie.

However, Kobayashi was lucky to be there at all as the Brooklyn Paper revealed that he was the only competitor who didn't have to qualify (Kobayashi received a "sponsors exemption"). Still as a former champion who won six times in a row, I think they were right to cut him some slack.

MLE* chairman George Shea noted that "Nathan’s has given sponsor’s exemptions in the past, just as, say, Tiger Woods is not asked to qualify for every tournament."

*Major League Eating.

For those of you thinking that this must be the most disgusting sporting contest on earth to watch, you're right. It's a little like "2 girls, 1 cup" except live on ESPN. In order to swallow the dogs faster the competitors dip the buns into beer turning them into mush (this technique was Kobayashi's invention). Many competitors also suffer "reversals" that count against their totals.

And quite frankly the whole thing must be severly shortening the competitor's lives. Dr. Marc Siegel, a professor at New York University School of Medicine said:

"Hot dogs are extremely unhealthy, especially when eaten at high volume," he said. "They're really processed, they have high cholesterol and too much salt."

And thanks to the quantities the competitors ate, they'll likely suffer nausea, bloat, headache, and possibly high blood pressure for several days as the body slowly digests the food.

"One is bad for you, five's worse and 50 is terrible," he said.

And perhaps this is the beginning of the decline for this great rivalry. In last few years records were smashed whenever these two titans of eating faced each other. This year they fell ten dogs short of the mark set last year despite Chestnut saying that he was "mentally prepared to get to 70". Kobayashi as well has suffered since having his wisdom teeth removed and suffering a sore jaw.

We'll have to wait and see. The next time these two will go jaw to jaw is Sept. 28 at the Krystal Square-Off World Hamburger Eating ­Championship in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Chestnut out chows Kobayashi [ESPN]

Once-Great Competitive Eater Reduced To Hustling At 10-Cent Wing Night

It's 1:30 a.m. Chris Rierden breathes a beleaguered sigh as he counts a large wad of singles next to the dumpsters behind a local Hooters. Though you wouldn't know it to look at the haggard, sauce-covered
32-year-old, Rierden—who currently ekes out a living hustling unsuspecting locals in impromptu low-stakes chicken-wing-eating contests—was at one time the most promising competitive eater on the
professional circuit.

From who else? The Onion­

It's another huge week of sport! Super 14 rugby, swimming, competitive eating, lots of wacky, some athletes of the week, but dicks of the week are slightly thinner on the ground.

Download Episode 14­

Subscribe to the Dropkicks Podcast (iTunes users click here).

As mentioned in the soon-to-be-released episode 23 of the podcast, here's the footage of Joey Chestnut's first ever victory over eating legend Takeru Kobayashi, at the 2007 Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest.

Playing a bit of catch-up football this week - finally posting last week's show on the same day this week's show is being edited.

But you've already heard it, haven't you, because you subscribe to the podcast feed? No? Click here for details on how to get the podcast sent to your iTunes, RSS Feeder, or Web Browser automatically, and stop relying on our sporadic blog posting for your latest podcast kicks...

Anyway, Episode 05 features the first Dropkicks competitive eating challenge, Super 14 review and picks, some Nascar, bare-handed vodka-fuelled shark catching, Chappell-Hadlee ODI Cricket series, and lots of tweeting birds...

Download Episode 2007/05.