Erik "The Red" Takes the Thai Qualifier with 22.5 HDbs
By Liz from July 3, 2006
After just missing the wild card slot, Erik Denmark was finally able to make his dream come true of making it to the Nathan's table tomorrow, July 4th. He competed in three qualifiers before this one, held today before the Brooklyn Cyclone's game in Coney Island, and came determined to win. And win he did, with an impressive 22.5 HDBs. He competed against eating legends Jammin' Joe LaRue, Don "Moses" Lerman, and Krazy Kevin, but nothing was keeping this Seattlite from earning his place at the 2006 Nathan's competition. Helping him along were other Nathan's eaters, including Rich LeFevre, Pat Bertoletti, Hall Hunt, Bob Shoudt, and Crazy Legs (there as a guest judge), who were parked right up front and shouting encouraging words to all the eaters throughout.
Pics from the qualifier are here, along with some from the weigh-in held earlier in the day.
<< | Posted on July 3, 2006 at 7:35 PM | >>
There are no more question marks, I just got lazy. The other competitors are Kobayashi, a guy from Sweden (Robert), a guy from the Czech Republic (Camille), and maybe a guy from Japan (?). You should root for Joey Chestnut, the American who mighttake back the Mustard Belt this year :-) Or any of the others; they're all good people.
Posted by liz @ July 4, 2006 5:14 AM
The other Japanese competitior is Kenji Oguni who is about the same size as Sonya Thomas despite being a male. Oguni's qualifier performance of 19 HDB was lower than any american winner's.
Posted by ojrifkin @ July 4, 2006 8:47 AM
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Wait, how can there still be two question marks when the contest is tomorrow? I don't understand!
Also, I don't know who to root for! I love Kobayashi of course, but the other eaters are each wonderful in their own right! I'll be closely following the live-blogging tomorrow morning! Yikes!
Posted by willow @ July 3, 2006 11:40 PM