When I think of sports dynasties, I think of the Celtics of 50s and 60s, the Edmonton Oilers of the 80s, the Bulls of the 90s, and more recently, the Patriots of the 2000s.
And in the world of competitive eating, no name is more recognized than Takeru Kobayashi and his six-year reign as Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating champion from 2001-06.
But he can move aside because Colorado is home to its own eating dynasty.
Over the past four years, the Taste of Colorado ice-cream-eating title has resided in my family. My nephew Dom was part of the 2005 winning team, my nephew John and me took the crown in 2006 with some random guy and his 7-year-old son who both suffered brain freezes 20 seconds in. In 2007, the three of us with my nephew Nick took the crown.
We came back this year ready to defend the crown as a family this year, but the competition changed to an individual format after an unfortunate incident last year — someone on another team suffered a bloody nose slamming into their frozen treat.
Our dream team was broken up and the competition was now for personal bragging rights. We knew that one of us was going to win — It wasn’t a question of if, it was a question of who.
One of the organizers said that someone finished a pint in the prelims with a time of 56 seconds. We figured that we’d go sub-50.
When the judge said go, Dom attacked the pint, taking half down with his first four bites. I used my consistant method, working on getting faster, smaller bites than bigger ones.
Dom broke off to a big lead like a front-running thoroughbred. But I made a strong push in the latter half like Michael Phelps on Michael Cavic in the 100 m butterfly.
Alas, my push was too little, too late. Dom finished his pint of cookie dough in 45 seconds, while I took down my mint brownie in 48.
No one else came close.
While I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t win, I’m happy that my family has established itself as Colorado’s kings of ice-cream eating.
C’mon Kobayashi, you’re next.
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