Five furry competitors come together in the spirit of friendly competition and delicious fruit.

We’re not a dedicated sports site here at SoraNews24, but every now and then there’s an athletic competition of such profound social and cultural significance that we’d be remiss if we didn’t discuss it. One of those events took place this summer, and though we couldn’t get to it right away, it really is too important to ignore, and so today we’re taking a look at arguably the finest summertime athletic competition in the land: the Capylympics Capybara Watermelon Speed-eating Championship.

▼ It’s called the Capybara no Suika Hayagui Kyoso in Japanese, if you want to impress your Japanese friends or teacher with your sophisticated vocabulary.

This annual event, in its ninth iteration in 2024, is a contest between five Japanese zoos: Izu Shaboten Zoo (Shizuoka Prefecture), Nagasaki Bio Park, Saitama Children’s Animal Nature Park, Nasu Animal Kingdom (Tochigi Prefecture), and Ishikawa Zoo. You may recall them as the institutes also represented in the annual Capybara Long Bath Championship, which takes place every January and was most recently won by Izu Shaboten Zoo’s Poru.

For the Capybara Watermelon Speed-eating Championship, each zoo designates a single competitor, who is presented with 500-gram (17.6-ounce) slice of watermelon. Whoever eats the entire thing, including the rind, in the shortest amount of time is the winner, and receives a medal, certificate of victory, and a selection of local regional products from the other zoos as a prize for their home facility.

Let’s take a look at this year’s competitors.

● Izu Shaboten Zoo

Ginnan (female, 6 years old, 50 kilograms [110.2 pounds], 90 centimeters [35.4 inches] long

● Nagasaki Bio Park

Ora (male, age unknown [estimated to be 3 years old], 35 kilograms, 75 centimeters)

● Saitama Children’s Animal Nature Park

Hechima (female, 5 years old, 50 kilograms, 100 centimeters

● Nasu Animal Kingdom

Sheeta (female, 7 years old, 58 kilograms, 120 centimeters)

● Ishikawa Zoo

Giba (female, 8 years old, 47 kilograms, 85 centimeters)

As you can see, there are no age, weight, or gender classes. The Capylympics Capybara Watermelon Speed-eating Championship is a challenge of pure skill with only one rule: if you can eat faster than your rivals, you win.

Of these five competitors, two of them are returning from last year’s competition. Nagasaki’s Ora placed fifth in 2023, while Saitama’s Hechima was the winner of the contest, and also 2022’s champion, meaning she was going for the threepeat this year.

The Capybara Watermelon Speed-eating Championship is a remote competition, but in 2024, for the first time, all competitors had identical start times of 2 p.m. The event took place on July 27, so without further ado, let’s get to the results.

5. Sheeta (Ishikawa Zoo): 4 minutes, 47 seconds

Sheeta is actually a two-season athlete who also competed in this year’s Capybara Long Bath Championship, in which she recorded the shortest soak time in the history of the event. Ishikawa Zoo had hoped that her apparent penchant for speediness would translate better to the Watermelon Speed-eating Championship, but surprisingly she came in last by a wide margin. Ishikawa Zoo speculates that her leisurely eating pace may have been a result of giving her a slice of locally grown Noto watermelon, which was so delicious that Sheeta wanted to savor it instead of just scarfing it down.

4. Ora (Nagasaki Bio Park): 3 minutes, 30 seconds

Though Ora still finished in the back half of the pack, not only did she improve her ranking, she also finished her watermelon in less than half the time (7 minutes, 12 seconds) that she took in 2023.

3. Giba (Nasu Animal Kingdom): 2 minutes, 55 seconds

2. Ginnan (Izu Shaboten Zoo): 2 minutes, 47 seconds

▼ Ginnan

Both Giba and Ginnan came in under three minutes, with the Izu’s representative edging Nasu’s for second place. That means that…

1. Hechima (Saitama Children’s Animal Nature Park): 1 minute, 48 seconds

For the third year in a row, Saitama’s Hechima has taken home the gold for Saitama in the Capylympics Capybara Watermelon Speed-eating Championship! Though not quite as speedy as her 1-minute, 29-second time from last year, Hechima was still nearly a full minute faster than her closest competitor, and as further proof of how easily she won, she immediately celebrated with another piece of watermelon.

Surprisingly, no video appears to have been posted yet of Hechima’s 2024 victory, but there is one of her 2023 performance, in case any young capybaras looking to become the stars of tomorrow want to study her technique.

Will Hechima return to defend her title and seek an unprecedented fourth consecutive gold medal in 2025? Will Ora continue to improve? Will Sheeta once again defy all expectations? We’ll have to wait until next summer to find out.

Source, images: PR Times
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