 Reigning champion to face new challenges
This month saw a new challenge in the Second International Auroville Ice-Cream Eating Contest: The Asian faction raised the bar and fielded an impressive 50 per cent of all participants, while last time the participation was entirely European. The event drew crowds to Richy Rich's ice-cream parlour inKuilapalayam to cheer for their favourites or enjoy ice cream free of any rules and regulations.  The rules
They were merely unchanged. The time per 500 ml ice-cream was raised from 15 minutes to 20 minutes, introducing an additional grace period of 5 minutes.
 The duel
Saturday, 14 April 2007, 15:35 IST: with only a small delay, the contest starts. The finalists this time are, in the blue corner, Ed, and the challenger Tuk-Hwan from Korea.  The Korean finalist turns out to have neglected some part of the preparation for thisevent: he orders Mango for the first round. As mentioned in the report about the first contest, it happens to be one of Ed's favourites.
After only 36 minutes, Tuk-Hwan yields to strawberry ice-cream and throws in the towel. Voices Tuk-Hwan's views on the contest, "It started okay for me, with lichi in the first round, but pineapple in round two really frazzled me out. Strawberry was not much of an improvement there, and I was compelled to submit towards Ed's experience in choosing the worst flavours ever. Also, this day I was not in a good condition. Usually I'm capable of destroying at least 5 litres of ice cream. I'm looking forward for a revenge in July, when I'll be back to Auroville."
 Ed's reply to that, "Tuk-Hwan started strong, he set a fast pace. I had hopes he wouldn't be able to keep it up, and they came true. I strongly believe he should have better listened to his coach, Thon-Den, who in my opinion gave good advice and apparently has a good sense of the ice-cream flavours, which Tuk-Hwan but ignored and overruled: my batch of mango, pista and vanilla was delicious. It was a bit disappointing to be defending my championship eating less ice cream than last time. It is disheartening to again and again see challengers seeking refuge in lame excuses like unnecessarily hard time-limits or being in a physically bad shape."
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