When Tareku Kobayashi took to the rooftop of 230 Fifth this weekend to compete live via satellite with the Major League Eating-sanctioned hot dog inhalers at Coney Island, an ecstatic crowd cheered him on to a world-record breaking victory of 69 dogs in 10 minutes. But it seemed just a little too convenient that the previous record, held by Kobayashi's arch-nemesis Joey Chestnut, was 68, and now, some are calling into question the validity of Kobayashi's feat.
A single-shot video shows a man in a suit frantically flipping numbers as Kobayashi crams the dogs down his gullet, but he "seems at times to lose track of the action, looking off stage for verification as to whether to flip to the next number." His count conveniently ends at 69. Another video featuring a "real count" clocks only 65 hotdogs (Chestnut ate 62 this year). Our own reporters couldn't get an accurate number, thanks in no small part to Kobayashi's habit of breaking and smashing multiple dogs down his throat at once.
Chestnut was amused by the situation, saying, "The whole thing seems kind of petty, but if that's the way he wants to compete then I'm happy for him. I think even Kobayashi would agree that the record still stands at 68. And if he wants to compete with me on the Fourth of July, he knows what he has to do—sign a simple contract and man up."
See for yourself:
