How many hot dogs will you eat?
For most, it’s a fairly innocuous question, usually asked by a friend or family member during the midday hours of Fourth of July, America’s celebration of its illimitable and (mostly) unquestioned freedom. It is just another tradition to honor on this most revelatory of days, right at home within the framework of patriotic celebration alongside fireworks, beer and potato salad.
For Takeru Kobayashi, for the man known to a generation of competitive eating fans simply as Kobayashi, the question carries the weight of a lifetime spent in contest, spent pushing himself farther, harder, faster in the hopes every year of devouring more than his opponents, in the hopes that the physical discomfort that will, of course, result, will have been worth it.
At this point, it’d be fair to wonder if Kobayashi believes it was.
Calvin Setar 
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