Eating 69 hotdogs in 10 minutes, buns and all, requires training. For Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi, the so-called godfather of competitive eating, that means drinking a lot of water. He starts by downing five litres in under 90 seconds, then rests, then repeats the process the next day, drinking more, faster. The goal is to increase the capacity of his stomach and the speed at which it expands. The target: 11 litres in 45 seconds. “It’s similar to the idea of building muscle,” he says.
Kobayashi is competitive eating’s first elite athlete. His career has been a procession of broken records and seemingly impossible feats: 9.7kg (21.3lb) of soba noodles in 12 minutes, 9kg of rice balls in 30 minutes, 41 lobster rolls in 10 minutes. Feeling full yet? Kobayashi has set world records in volume (15 and a half pizzas in 12 minutes) and in speed (60 bunless hotdogs in 2min 35sec). How many tacos could you eat in 10 minutes? He did 159 – and yes, that’s another world record.
