Is it a sport, part III

[southsider2k5]

From the Chicago Tribune

 

The first Colossal Burger arrived held together by a large steak knife: 1 pound of medium-rare ground beef slathered in American and Monterey Jack cheeses.

 

"I'll probably be ordering two," Joe Donar told the waitress at the Ruby Tuesday restaurant in his hometown of Downers Grove, then commenced devouring the glistening mass of meat with the voracity of a wild bear.

 

He was, after all, in training. On Saturday afternoon, Donar will vie with other big eaters to see who can bite, chew and swallow the most cheese pizza in 12 minutes.

 

Mind you, this is not some run-of-the-mill county fair pie-eating contest. Equal parts sport and carnival freak show, Saturday's event is the first to be sanctioned in Chicago by the International Federation of Competitive Eating, a 7-year-old organization that has helped propel a once-obscure pastime into a phenomenon complete with world rankings and star "eating athletes."

 

Competitive eating is not relegated to men who buy their clothes at big and tall stores. Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas weighs a mere 105 pounds, but is ranked second in the world by the IFOCE. The 36-year-old from Alexandria, Va., who will compete Saturday, holds 11 world records, including the hard-boiled egg, fruitcake, hamburger and oyster titles.

 

Competitors such as Thomas train by expanding their stomachs with large quantities of food and drink. They travel the country for contests, downing everything from matzo balls to meat pies, Spam to French-cut green beans. Prize money is growing, and champions can take home checks for thousands of dollars.

 

"It's absolutely a sport," said Ed "Cookie" Jarvis, 38, of New York, ranked third in the world by the IFOCE, and the favorite to win Saturday's Bacci World Pizza Eating Championship.

 

"If they say fly-fishing is a sport, then eating is a sport," said Jarvis, who weighs 409 pounds and once ate 4 pounds of mayonnaise in eight minutes. "Eating is a heck of a lot harder than fly-fishing."

 

Glorifying overeating?

 

Detractors say the competitions send the wrong message in a nation where obesity is the second-leading cause of preventable death.

 

"To make a sport out of competitive eating is kind of an oxymoron," said Robert Kushner, a professor of medicine at Northwestern University. "I don't think we need to reward competitive eating when obesity is such a serious health problem in our country. It leads to health problems; it shouldn't be leading to medals."

 

For enthusiasts, the contests are spectacles of gorging, a guilty pleasure where they can watch men and women down more food in 10 minutes than a family of four eats in a day.

 

The concept has become so popular that the Fox network devoted two hours of prime time two years ago to an event it called the "Glutton Bowl." During the special, the world's top eaters devoured everything from sushi to cow brains, beef tongue and sticks of butter. ESPN plans a live broadcast of Coney Island's venerable hot-dog eating contest on July 4.

 

"The whole thing about this is it's not what people expect," said George Shea, co-founder of the IFOCE, which will sanction 70 competitions in the U.S. this year. "It's not a 14-year-old adolescent thing. It's a sport. We have met resistance, but it is a sport, believe me. There are rules, there are real records. We are not the WWF."

 

Even "Super Size Me" director Morgan Spurlock, who said he suffered liver damage after eating nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days, is a fan of competitive eating.

 

"When you can't win a marathon, you've got to compete somewhere," Spurlock said. "I don't encourage tons of people to go out and suddenly become competitive eaters. But I can appreciate it for what it is."

 

Requiring both speed and volume, competitive eating is not for the weak-stomached. The petite Thomas said she drinks 4 liters of diet soda a day to expand her stomach.

 

"I'm small, but I can eat," Thomas said. "I'm very energetic. I'm very active. If I eat a whole pizza, I don't eat the rest of the day."

 

Local competitors, like Donar, qualified for Saturday's competition at the Bacci restaurant on Taylor Street in Little Italy by eating three extremely large slices of thin-crust pizza in 20 minutes. Donar said he recently ate eight McChicken sandwiches in one sitting and can down the 50-wing Tailgate Bucket at Hooters all by himself.

 

On Monday, he finished his first Colossal Burger--all 1,677 calories--in about five minutes, and waited patiently for the second to arrive. At 160 pounds, Donar is less than half the size of Jarvis.

 

"I don't plan on winning," said Donar, 21, who did some research on the Internet and saw that Thomas once consumed 11 pounds of cheesecake in nine minutes. "It's just cool to eat next to these guys."

 

Sport has long history

 

According to Shea, modern-day competitive eating began with the first 4th of July Hot Dog Eating Contest at Nathan's Famous on Coney Island in 1916. Shea formed the IFOCE in 1997, after years of helping organize the annual contest at Nathan's, now considered the Super Bowl of the sport.

 

Until now, Shea's group had never sanctioned a contest in Chicago, but the pitchman doesn't waste a beat proclaiming Saturday's contest one of the greatest.

 

"It's already been declared a fast pizza," Shea said. "It's succulent and flavorful. Other pizzas are more dry and would cause significant challenges for an eating athlete."

 

Bacci's office manager, Kim Graffe, said she was looking to expand her contest after its first year and read about the IFOCE in Maxim magazine. She called Shea, and he quickly came on board. Now, the contest will include three of the top five eaters in the world, vying for a $2,500 first-place prize.

 

Last year's winner, Mark Skiba of Downers Grove, is undaunted by the infusion of talent from afar. He trains once or twice a week, eating three or four pieces of pizza as fast as he can. He drinks about 1 1/2 gallons of water to expand his stomach, and believes he can compete with the likes of Jarvis, who has little trouble eating 10 pounds of food at a buffet.

 

"He's from New York," said Skiba, 18. "He doesn't know real pizza like from [Chicago]."

 

Rules for the contest are simple: It is all you can eat, any way you can eat it, in 12 minutes. Vomiting--referred to on the circuit as a "reversal of fortune" or "urges contrary to swallowing"--results in an automatic disqualification.

 

Just what effect the gorging has on competitors is unclear. Kushner, of Northwestern, said to his knowledge, there has never been a study of competitive eaters, but he has his concerns.

 

The body, Kushner said, is amazingly efficient at absorbing calories, meaning most of the food competitors eat is converted into fat. Over time, competing in such contests could lead to diabetes, higher cholesterol and heart disease. "I can't imagine it's healthy," Kushner said.

 

Cookie Jarvis disagreed.

 

"The bottom line is I get checked out all the time to make sure I don't have any problems," said Jarvis, who recently slimmed down from 429 pounds, and believes he can eat 1 1/2 24-inch pizzas in Saturday's 12-minute competition. "I'm healthy. The doctor says I have better cholesterol than him--and he's a doctor."

 

But Barbara Klein, a professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said such a lifestyle can lead to clogged arteries and other problems. "I can't imagine anybody getting pleasure out of doing this kind of eating," she said.

 

In Downers Grove, Donar had little trouble finishing off a second Colossal Burger, leaving his plate completely clean.

 

"This is a cakewalk," he said, then declined to order a third. He could do it, he said, but decided not to."I hate the uncomfortable fullness."

 

Before Saturday, Donar said, he will take a stab at a 4-pound burger. Then he will set his sights on the pizza-eating contest, hoping the heavy hitters stumble.

 

"I'm still going to do it. It's free pizza," he said. "The only problem is I like to enjoy my food. In 12 minutes, you just snarf it down and get sick."

 

- - -

 

Ready, set . . . eat!

 

"Eating athletes" will vie for $2,500 by trying to eat the most cheese pizza in 12 minutes at the Bacci World Pizza Eating Championship Saturday in Chicago. The contest is sanctioned by the International Federation of Competitive Eating, which ranks competitive eaters worldwide.

 

LEADING CONTENDERS

 

Two of the top three competitive eaters will be among those vying for the $2,500 prize.

 

Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas

 

RESIDENCE: Alexandria, Va.

 

AGE: 36

 

WEIGHT: 105 pounds

 

WORLD RANKING: 2nd

 

WORLD RECORDS:

 

11 eating records including: 14 eating records including:

 

- Hard-boiled eggs

 

65 in 6 minutes, 40 seconds

 

- Cheesecake

 

11 pounds in 9 minutes

 

- Burgers (3/4 pound)

 

7 in 10 minutes

 

Ed "Cookie" Jarvis

 

RESIDENCE: Nesconset, N.Y.

 

AGE: 38

 

WEIGHT: 409 pounds

 

WORLD RANKING: 3rd

 

WORLD RECORDS:

 

- 17-inch cheese pizza in 3 minutes, 20 seconds

 

- Chicken wings

 

94 in 12 minutes

 

- Corned beef & cabbage

 

4 pounds in 10 minutes

 

The world's top competitive eater is 132-pound Takeru

 

Kobayashi, 25, of Nagano, Japan, who ate 50 1/2 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes at the 2002 Nathan's hot dog eating contest in Coney Island, N.Y.

 

Source: International Federation of Competitive Eating

[IlliniKrush]

Oh man, this is nowhere near a sport, these guys are absolutely comical

 

Since when does something being hard (to do at a fast rate or in large quantities, etc) make it a sport?

 

I can't type 200 words per minute...does that mean that someone who can type 200/min can claim that typing is a sport too?

[Queen Prawn]

:puke

[Texsox]

:puke

You are disqualified Queeny, didn't you read the rules?

[southsideirish]

You are disqualified Queeny, didn't you read the rules?

No way is this a sport. However, if we combine this event with NASCAR then we have a sport. I would watch that.

[Palehosefan]

"Jarvis, who weighs 409 pounds and once ate 4 pounds of mayonnaise in eight minutes. "

 

That is just sickening, he's gonna have the worlds first albino poop.

[kapkomet]

Did we really need to know about albino poop?

[Wise Master Buehrle]

No way is this a sport. However, if we combine this event with NASCAR then we have a sport. I would watch that.

 

"Jarvis, who weighs 409 pounds and once ate 4 pounds of mayonnaise in eight minutes. "

 

That is just sickening, he's gonna have the worlds first albino poop.

 

 

This is as much a sport as I am a superhero.

[redandwhite]

"Jarvis, who weighs 409 pounds and once ate 4 pounds of mayonnaise in eight minutes. "

 

To put it in perspective, I haven't eaten even a teaspoon of mayonaisse in the last 5 years. Sick.

[Texsox]

Let's run through some of the criteria

 

Any motorized devices? No.

Physical training and skill? Yes

Competitive? Yes

 

I cannot believe I'm saying this, but it does seem to fit what a lot of people have said is necessary to be a sport.

 

Only in America

 

Instead of a foam finger to cheer your favorite glutton, you get a whole foam body.