Competitive eating champion Takeru (The Tsunami) Kobayashi has suffered a jaw injury that could keep him out of the July 4th Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Championship. Kobayashi has suffered a jaw injury during training that according to him only allows him to open his mouth the width of a finger. The International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE)reported the same on June 25th.

Better than Tiger Woods in Golf, Michael Schumacher in Formula 1, Roger Federer in Tennis, Takeru Kobayashi has dominated the world of competitive eating like few athletes have dominated their sport. Recently however, his hot dog record was surpassed by American Joey Chestnut with an astounding 59.5 hot dogs.

This is a real disapointment for me personally as watching this is one of the most entertaining 12 minutes of human adventure that you could want. Combine that with the nature of humans bent towards competition, taking sides over the competitors and pulling for your man, this year could have been a show down of magnitude. The competitors could have forced each other over the once unheard of 60 hot dog barrier.

Word on the street (ok, undocumented….just heard by me on the radio) was that Kobayashi was either sandbagging or didn’t want to lose given the appearance fee’s and sponsor money at stake. I’ll give him the benefit of doubt that he’s really injured this time, but he better face Chestnut soon or I’ll have my doubts.

If he does show up, the drama of Kobayashi being an underdog for the first time would really add drama.

I also hope for a reversal of fortune this year, just for the pageantry of the sport to be on display.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 9:09 am and is filed under entertainment, humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.