Showing off speed eating at Hotdog Showdown 2022

Sundays are usually reserved for quiet days at home, or recently, for going to support
protests. However, last Sunday (8 May) saw Trace Expert City come alive with music, tents,
food, and of course, people. What was the occasion? It was none other than Hotdog
Showdown (HDS) 2022.

The signature project of the Rotaract Club of Informatics Institute of Technology (RACIIT)
since 2013, the ninth iteration of HDS is returning after the event's last run in 2020, the
2021 event having not been held due to the country's situation at the time.
HDS is, as the name suggests, an eating challenge revolving around hotdogs, and each year
there are dozens of competitors who just wanna eat it all, and fast.
“We wanted to make HDS ‘22 bigger and better of course,” said Rumeth Randombage, one
of the project leads. “It’s usually done at green path, but was moved to Trace Expert City
this year. Despite everything happening in the country, we are glad we pulled off this
fundraiser.”
The club has made the most of the break year and has expanded on the project's focus this
year; aside from the hotdogs eating competition, there are additions such as carnival games,
food stalls, musical performances, and even a motor show.
The crowd on a Sunday morning was an unexpected but pleasant surprise.
“I think the best part of this event was the performance line up we had this year, specially
with UMARA, and the line up of voice/dream star finalists. Overall, even for the hotdog
competition we had good participation and we believe it went very well. We may have had a
few ups and downs but it all ended well and the event was a success,” Rumeth further
noted.

This year the competition itself was divided into two categories, one for the ladies and one
for the gents.

Preliminary rounds were held in the morning (but we are Sri Lanka, so it was more towards
noon), with the three winners (those who ate their hotdogs fastest) proceeding into the
next rounds, which kicked off shortly after 1pm.
Each round became increasingly intense (who knew eating hotdogs would be intense), with
four triumphant winners finally being declared towards evening.
● Male category: Chathura Rashmika
● Female category: Herin Yashmika
With that, and the motor show, plus a musical performance commencing right after, the
day's proceedings were finally over, with satisfied crowds dispersing in small clusters until
no one remained.
Despite the fun vibes and created environment, HDS is not simply about having fun for the
members of RACIIT. The funds from this project go towards one of the club's signature
community service projects, E-Mithudama. Under E-Mithudama, the club builds and
donates computers and makes computer laboratories for children in rural areas with limited
learning resources.
We spoke to RACIIT president Induwara Mapalagama to get his views.
“HDS ‘22 was a huge task for us, and as the club President sometimes it seemed like an
impossible task. But thankfully with the talented individuals from RACIIT, we were able to
pull HDS off this year, bigger and better than before,” he said. “HDS is a very important
project for us, since all the funds from this project will go towards E-Mithudama.”

“HDS Happened at a very critical time, with many issues popping up” he explained, adding,
“However, due to teamwork, hard work, and dedication, it ended up being a massive
success and I want to thank everyone who helped us throughout this journey.”
“We will be focusing on starting the planning process for building labs starting from 1 July
with the money that was raised,” he said regarding E-Mithudama.
“As a final note, I should thank everyone for coming that day, and I hope they had a
wonderful time while serving the community,” concluded Induwara.
All in all, a good event and a good day to come and eat hotdogs for a good cause.
RACIIT assures us that HDS will return next year, so stay tuned.