Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest

I may have heard about it before, but I definitely haven't seen it. Hot dog eating contest, which seems to be the 4th of July tradition here in USA.

Because we happen to be in NY during the independence day of USA, we planned to go to see the Macy's 4th of July fireworks. Somehow we got lazy and decided to see it on TV at our apartment. And I'm glad we did, 'cause just before the fireworks there was the final of Nathan's Hot Dog -Eating Contest 2011. And that was something. I believe we Finns have some strange contests, like Wife carrying World Championship, Air Guitar World Championship, Ant-Nest Sitting Competition... just to name some, but I felt this Hot Dog Eating Contest was something different. I couldn't do anything else, but watch with amazement. And I got to tell you they didn't have that nice table manners during the competition.

It really looked something like this:



Why won't they do it with a heavenly elegance, like this: (and yes, I know there's something wrong with the hand. Who cares about anatomical details..?)



Oh, how many hot dogs..? I ate one hot dog yesterday, and I could have easily eaten a couple more. But the winner of this year's contest, Joey Chestnut, ate 62 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Good for him.

P.S. How come the competitors are so thin? Shouldn't they practice and shouldn't lot of hot dogs make you fat?