Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
Friday, July 13, 2007, Washington Post

Hey, Sport, Chew on This

Is eating hot dogs really a sport?

Last week, the sports network ESPN televised the annual Fourth of July hot-dog-eating competition from Coney Island, New York.

American Joey Chestnut defeated six-time champ Takeru Kobayashi of Japan and set a world record in the process. Chestnut wolfed down an amazing 66 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes. That's one dog and bun every 10.9 seconds!

Kids, absolutely, positively do not try this at home. As Kobayashi demonstrated, for the fans who were there and the national TV audience, even a champion professional eater can get sick to his stomach after eating so much.

Chestnut, 23, won a mustard-yellow championship belt for his personal-best effort. Last month in Arizona, he downed 59 1/2 hot dogs in a similar event, one of dozens each year overseen by the International Federation of Competitive Eating.

So, is competitive eating -- of hot dogs or anything else -- a sport? Let's think about this.

It's easy to see that baseball, tennis, soccer and other games are sports. They are tough, physical activities with clear rules to decide who wins. But what about some of the other stuff on so-called sports TV?

How about poker? ESPN and other networks show championship card games all the time. Is poker a sport? I don't think so. Sports have to be some kind of physical activity. Card players mostly sit and think. Games such as poker and chess don't seem like sports to me.

Lots of people think that golf is a game, not a sport. Golfers don't work up much of a sweat, it's true. Caddies carry their clubs. But swinging a golf club is a difficult enough physical activity that it seems to me that golf is a sport, even if it isn't as physically tough as some others.

Lots of kids are into skateboarding. Extreme-sports stars such as Tony Hawk and Bucky Lasek have to be terrific athletes to do those aerial stunts. So is skateboarding a sport?

I know I'll hear from people who disagree, but I don't think that any activity where a panel of judges decides who wins is a true sport. To me, skateboarding, figure-skating and other judged events are fun to watch, but they're not sports.

I do think it's a sport when people race on ice skates, skateboards and snowboards. Judges don't decide who wins those races; it's who crosses the finish line first.

Deciding what's a sport and what isn't can get tricky. And, of course, this is just my opinion. If you like doing something that's fun and good for you, such as dance or cheerleading, what difference does it make whether someone else calls it a sport?

But getting back to where I started: Is competitive hot-dog eating a sport? Well, it certainly seems to be a tough, physical activity, and there are clear rules to decide who wins.

But in my opinion, eating 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes isn't a sport.

It's just stupid.