23 August 2004

Nobody can eat fifty eggs

The mind boggles.
Fresh off her victory in December's fruitcake eating contest (she downed 5 pounds in 10 minutes), the 99-pound [Sonya] Thomas polished off 167 wings, edging out her 400-pound challenger by two wings.

You're probably familiar with competitive eating, but it seems the "sport" been growing in popularity in recent years. (Yes, they call it a "sport.") There's even a group, the International Federation of Competitive Eating, that governs the the industry and maintains a ranking system for "gustatory athletes." (Yes, they call themselves "athletes.") And while we occasionally hear about a few eating contests such as the annual hot-dog competition on Coney Island, many of these "athletes" travel throughout the year competing in dozens of smaller (and less appetizing) events: beef tongue (record: 3 pounds in 12 minutes), butter (7 quarter-pound sticks in 5 minutes) ...

And in answer to the question that all good Cool Hand Luke fans are asking, Ms. Thomas is the holder of the record for hard-boiled eggs: sixty-eight in eight minutes.

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