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Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi (小林 尊) is a Japanese competitive eater, described as “The Godfather of Competitive Eating”, he is a six-time Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest champion and widely credited with popularizing the sport.
Born in Nagano, Japan, he won the 2000 Japanese variety show TV Champion Gluttony Championship by eating 16 bowls of ramen in 1 hour in the final. Also competing in the popular TV show Food Battle Club, he went on to win the final round of several stages, besting his mentor and previous champion. This resulted in a frenzy of fame for him in Japan and Asia before he appeared in the United States.
Kobayashi set his first world record in western culture in his rookie appearance on July 4, 2001, when he ate 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes at the Nathan’s Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest, almost doubling the previous record of 25⅛. The record was so unexpected that the organizers ran out of signs indicating how many hot dogs Kobayashi had eaten and had to resort to handwritten signs. He would go on to break his own record three times in winning the contest 6 consecutive times (2001–2006).
Hot dog-eating champion Joey Chestnut faces off against rival Takeru Kobayashi in the ultimate wiener-takes-all competition.
Distributor : Netflix
Genre : Special Interest, Sports
Original Language : English
Release Date (Streaming) : Sep 2, 2024
Runtime : 1h 11m
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