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Sunday, July 06, 2008
Passerby clenches hot dog victoryOriginally published July 06, 2008By Nicholas C. Stern News-Post Staff
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Photo by Stephanie Ramsay
At eight hot dogs, Mike Schumun ate the most out of all the competitors who competed in a hot dog eating contest Saturday, sponsored by Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries. The object was to eat as many hot dogs as they could in 10 minutes.
With eyes bigger than their stomachs, some contestants preparing for a downtown hot dog eating contest Saturday boasted of appetite, technique and experience.
Yet a man who stepped from the crowd minutes before the stopwatch began ticking took home the prize.
Victor Alford of Frederick scarfed seven hot dogs, with bun, in downtown Frederick's First Saturday event along Carroll Creek. He beat four other contestants in the 10-minute battle and won a dinner for two at event sponsor Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries restaurant.
"It just happened," Alford said, polishing off the remains of his final frankfurter. "I wasn't coming here for this, but it filled me up pretty good."
Not so for Emmitsburg local Nick Combs, who stepped from the table mid-contest overloaded and nauseous.
For an hour before the eating began, Combs taunted passersby to enter and be defeated, by him.
Combs claimed he'd eaten 32 hot dogs, sans bun, in 15 minutes at one sitting. He spoke of his prospects as a competitive eater.
"There's no point in joining if I'm in it," he crowed to two men who walked briskly by.
But under pressure, Combs was the only contestant to fold.
An hour later, Mike Schumun, who competed in the second contest of the evening, topped Alford's victory with eight hot dogs.
Josh Zygmout, who was visiting from Connecticut, said before the first contest he wanted to follow in the footsteps of competitive eating champion Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, holder of the Mustard Yellow International Belt.
On Friday, Chestnut defeated his Japanese rival Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi, at Nathan's Famous Fourth of July contest in New York by eating 59 hot dogs in 10 minutes, and an additional five to clinch the tiebreaker.
The specter of Chestnut's accomplishment hung heavy on the lips of many considering whether to enter. One man walking by said he had enough just seeing Chestnut eating on TV.
Zygmout said he'd entered a handful of eating contests involving hamburgers and chicken wings and was confident, despite being untested in the challenges of downing so much bun, that he would win his first hot dog contest.
"I think I can make it," he said. "It's the great American challenge."
He appeared calm and collected throughout the 10-minute trial, but destiny had other plans.
Elena Juris of Washington had signed up, simply looking for a little dinner on her sightseeing tour of Frederick.
"I think eating contests should be relegated to the non-serious, non-profit realm," Juris said.
Seconds before the contest began, however, Juris, sprinting toward the table, stepped back, declining the remaining seat.
The whole point of entering the contest was to have her friends, who'd suddenly vanished, watch her, she said.
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