Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest slathered in controversy. | Drew Grazelle's Blog

Like baseball, mom and apple pie nothing is more American than the Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest held every fourth of July, but apparently the Major League Eating governing body has ruled that this year’s contest will be shortened from 12 minutes to 10 minutes, citing historical research that the original contest was ten minutes (other versions have the first 1916 contest at only three and a half minutes.) This has competitors who normally do their talking with their mouths, crying foul. This is roughly the equivalent of taking the last 6.2 miles off the marathon and only running twenty miles. Scientific research has shown that human body begins to feel “full” under normal eating conditions after approximately twenty minutes. Given the tension of competing and the greatly increased pace, twelve minutes was seen as the perfect time limit, as last year’s champion American Joey Chesnut was only able to pull away from Takeru Kobayashi in the last minutes in last year’s contest. This ruling will also affect historical records and will preclude any chance that the world hot dog eating record will be broken this year. Last year’s competition was marred when Takeru Kobayashi was allowed to keep his second place finish even though he was clearly unable to keep his final HDBs down. This was not the first time the six time champion was given the benefit of the doubt by the judges. In 2002, he was awarded the victory over Eric Booker after suffering a bout of vomiting. Controversy also clouded the 1999 contest when Steve Keiner ate half a hot dog before the official start. While this should have been charged as a false start to the entire field, the contest was allowed to proceed. While this controversy will draw huge crowds to Coney Island, it does little to placate the true competitive eating fans.