Is the Godfather of Competitive Eating Ready to Reclaim his Title?

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 July 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last month, we learned that the rivalry between legendary competitive eaters, Japan’s Takeru Kobayashi and America’s Joey Chestnut, would be renewed this Labor Day. It will be their first head-to-head, hot-dog-eating-showdown in 14 years. A dispute with the organizers of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating contest, a July 4th tradition, had forced Kobayashi out of the competition in 2010. A similar dispute this year for Chestnut set the stage for a long awaited rematch between two men who had accounted for 22 of the last 23 Nathan’s Famous titles. So today, we bring you an interview with Takeru Kobayashi himself, exploring what drove him to rethink and revolutionize the sport of eating in the early 2000s, why his rivalry with Chestnut wasn’t as fun as it looked, the false reports of his retirement, and what we should expect to see when these two finally meet again on Labor Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Kobe, what was it like the first time you tasted a hot dog?
0:03.6	Yes, I actually do remember.
0:08.8	The first time I had a hot dog was many years ago.
0:17.0	Okay, listeners, let me explain what you're hearing here.
0:20.8	A couple weeks ago I spoke with a man named
0:23.0	Kauru Kobayashi.
0:24.8	That's a name some of you may not be familiar with.
0:27.9	Others of you may not have heard his name in a long time.
0:31.5	But suffice it to say, if you do know him at all
0:34.0	the American hot dog is a pretty crucial part of this Japanese icon story.
0:39.0	The first time I ever went and competed at Nathan's I ate it two days before the
0:46.2	actual competition so it must have been July 2nd I landed in New York and it was the
0:52.1	first thing that I ate so New York and it was the first thing that I ate. So I do remember it clearly.
0:55.6	The taste was very strong and it was salty.
0:59.6	Kobe had his interpreter with him for my sake,
1:04.0	and as I was listening to him talk about tasting his first hot dog,
1:08.0	which he ate at 23 years old,
1:10.0	I was struck by the irony.
1:19.0	Because a mere two days after eating that first dog,
1:25.0	Kobayashi set a groundbreaking and sport altering world record.
1:30.2	They say it's a marathon and not a sprint, but don't tell that to 23 year old 130 pound Takiru Kobayashi who took a big lead
1:36.6	no one not hungry Charles or the doginator could catch up.
	...

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