Soba champ eats 201 bowls in 5 minutes

HANAMAKI, Iwate — A soba-eating contest was held Friday in Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture, with 140 hungry participants taking part in five categories.

Contestants had to eat as many miso soup-sized bowls of the buckwheat noodles as they could in five minutes. The overall winner, a 37-year-old man from Miyagi, downed 201 bowls, 20 short of the record of 222 set by a housewife last year.