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Staff Photo by John Rawlston
Takeru Kobayashi, right, raises his arms to celebrate winning the Krystal Square Off at Ross's Landing on Sunday while announcer George Shea exhorts the crowd. Joey Chestnut, left, who won the contest in 2007 and 2008, finished second to Mr. Kobayashi, who also won in 2004, 2005 and 2006.
Takeru Kobayashi, of Tokyo, made a surprising comeback Sunday afternoon at the sixth annual Krystal Square Off, downing 93 burgers and earning the title as the 2009 world hamburger eating champion.
Mr. Kobayashi, who has won three other Krystal championships as well as a handful of titles from the Nathan’s Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest, seemed to be past his prime as he started in, falling well behind defending champion Joey Chesnut of San Jose, Calif., and Pat Bertoletti, of Chicago.
“I thought it was over,” said George Shea, chairman of Major League Eating. “I thought his career was over.”
But my the halfway mark of the eight-minute challenge, Mr. Kobayashi held steady while Mr. Chesnut and Mr. Bertoletti slowed their pace. Mr. Kobayashi downed 94 burgers while Mr. Chesnut placed second with 81.
“This re-establishes him as a force in competitive eating in a way he wasn’t only a day ago.” Mr. Shea said.
They ought to give that man a physical to make sure his gut is not surgically enlarged to cheat. Those Japanese people will go pretty far with scientific solutions to normal problems.
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