In this chapter, we learn that the four competitors in the grand prix final are separated from each other by a wall of silence. Each of them has to eat over four-and-a-half kilograms in order to make it into the final. This is the first time that a competition has been so difficult, and each of the competitors has to keep eating to stay ahead of the other three. In the dark, he says, he learned to keep a "rhythm with his finger" . He compares this to how he trained two years ago to eat in the dark without knowing how long it had taken him to eat. He says that this training has helped him prepare for the day when he will compete with the other four in the future.