Controversy
Controversies usually revolve around supposed breaches of rules that are missed by the judges. For example, NY1 television news reporter Quinn O'Malley reviewed taped footage of the 1999 contest and noticed that Steve Keiner ate half of a hot dog before the contest had officially begun. The judge, who was standing directly in front of Keiner, missed it – otherwise Keiner would have been disqualified. According to the rules, the judge's word is final, so in this case Keiner took first place despite O'Malley's discovery.
Another controversy occurred in 2003 when former NFL Player William "The Refrigerator" Perry competed as a celebrity contestant. Though he had won a qualifier by eating twelve hot dogs, he ate only four H.D.B.s at the contest, stopping eating completely just five minutes into the competition. On July 1, 2004, at a ceremony following a showing of Crazy Legs Conti's documentary, George Shea stated that the celebrity contestant experiment will likely not be repeated.
At the 2007 contest, the results were delayed to review whether defending champion Takeru Kobayashi had vomited (also known as a "Roman method incident" or "reversal of fortune") in the final seconds of the competition. Such an incident results in the disqualification of the competitor under the rules of the IFOCE. The judges ruled in Kobayashi's favor; a disqualification would have given second place to Patrick Bertoletti. A similar incident occurred during Kobayashi's 2002 title defense when he consumed over fifty hot dogs in a victory over Eric "Badlands" Booker.
Kobayashi did not compete in the contest in 2010 or 2011 due to his refusal to sign an exclusive contract with the event's organizers like he had the previous nine years. In 2010, Kobayashi was arrested after he ran onto the stage after the contest was over. On July 4, 2011, he competed on the rooftop of a Manhattan bar, 230 Fifth, for the duration of the Coney Island contest. Two judges observed Kobayashi while the live broadcast of the event played next to him on a large television screen. Kobayashi claimed to finish 69 hot dogs, one more than the recognized world record and seven more than Chestnut's winning total in the 2011 contest. "I want to remain free to compete in the events that I want to compete in," Kobayashi said. "Today was a great success." Informed of the number, Major League Eating president George Shea snapped, “The champion of the world is crowned in Coney Island. Always has been, always will be. He put a tin crown on his head and called himself king.”
Read more about this topic: Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)