Czech man breaks own record, eats 205 plum dumplings in one hour

Radim Dvořáček from Ostrava broke his own Czech record by wolfing down 205 plum dumplings in one hour during the dumpling-eating contest at the Vizovice Trnkobraní music festival, which culminated on Saturday night.  

The plum dumpling contest is one of the Czech Republic's biggest competitive eating events, and the highlight of the three-day festival. Vizovice, in the Czech Republic's Zlín region, is home to the Rudolf Jelínek distillery; founded in 1882, the distillery is most famous for slivovice, a liquor produced from plums.

Dvořáček has won the contest three times, and previously set the Czech record in 2018 by eating 202 dumplings in an hour. To prepare for this year's event, he drank copious amounts of water, tea, and coffee in the days before the event.

"I drank about 13 liters twice the day before. During the morning before the competition, I drank about seven liters in ten minutes," Dvořáček told ČTK after his victory.

"[The liquids] help the stomach expand. But this requires long-term training. It takes several years to develop like this."

Eight men took part in this year's contest. Miloš Janček came in second with 120 dumplings, while Jakub Cejpek and Kamil Horňák tied for third at 95 dumplings. The world record in the dumpling-eating contest is held by American Patrick Bertoletti, who consumed a whopping 233 dumplings in 2008.

Breaking his own 2018 record was Dvořáček's goal at this year's event. He had some difficulty around the 130th dumpling, but the crowd egged him on to completion.

"The dough was sticky, I couldn't swallow anymore. In addition, when drinking is not allowed, it's even worse," he said.

"But then the audience booed me, so I kind of pushed it in there. I stretched, it helps to jump, for example."

Only dumplings made from the original Czech recipe are allowed in the competition: steamed dough, coarse flour, egg yolks, milk, a pinch of salt, and a whole plum. The final result is counted by tallying up the number of plum pits a contestant leaves behind; should they swallow a dumpling whole, it would not count towards their total.

What will Dvořáček have next?

"Plums are easy to digest, they're good for the intestines and digestion. Now I'll have some meat."