In It to Win It

Great athletes do unthinkable things in order to compete. Curt Schilling pitched the World Series through a bloody sock. Lance Armstrong defeated cancer to win seven consecutive Tour de France titles. Rocky battled senescence and a steroid-ravaged brain to make one last stab at box office glory. But today those towering figures of American sport were eclipsed by one man: Kobayashi. Yes, I realize he lost, but as I have said in other fora his heart is as big as his duodenum. With time running out in today's hot dog battle and with the unofficial tally showing him tied with Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, Kobayashi had (what is known in the biz as) a "Reversal of Fortune." But in the absence of Alan Dershowitz (or even Ron Silver) to guide him, Kobayashi did what only a great athlete would do. He stuffed hands to face, pushed vomit back into his own mouth, and kept eating. You see, as the announcer points out, in competitive eating you're credited for what's in your mouth when time is called, and a reversal can lead to a disqualification. Unthinkable. Unspeakable. Peerless. He's a champion for the ages--despite what this humorless, self-important prick thinks.