The Nathan’s Well-known Fourth of July sizzling canine consuming contest is again, and famed aggressive eater Joey “Jaws” Chestnut is hoping for a comeback seventeenth win on Friday.
The 41-year-old, from Westfield, Indiana, was not in final yr’s occasion as a result of a contract dispute involving a deal he struck with a competing model, the plant-based meat firm Unimaginable Meals. Now he is again, saying issues have been ironed out.
Patrick Bertoletti, of Chicago, gained the title in Chestnut’s absence final yr and is the defending males’s champion.
Defending champion Miki Sudo, 39, of Tampa, Florida, gained the ladies’s competitors and her eleventh title on Friday, downing 33 canine and buns. Final yr, she consumed a file 51 canine.
“I really feel like I let the followers down a little bit bit. I heard folks within the crowd saying, ‘Go for 52,’” Sudo informed ESPN. “Clearly, I’m all the time setting my objectives excessive, however the sizzling canine weren’t cooperating. For some cause, the buns felt bigger at the moment.”
The annual gastronomic battle, which dates again to 1972, is held in entrance of the unique Nathan’s Well-known restaurant at New York’s Coney Island and attracts giant crowds of followers, many sporting foam sizzling canine hats.
Opponents within the males’s and ladies’s classes devour as many sizzling canine as potential in 10 minutes. They’re allowed to dunk the canine in cups of water to melt them up, making a stomach-churning spectacle.
The 15 males within the competitors hail from throughout the U.S. and the world, together with Australia, the Czech Republic, Canada, England and Brazil.
The 13 ladies opponents have been all Individuals. Two of the ladies have been a mom and daughter from Marysville, Washington.
Chestnut set the world file of consuming 76 wieners and buns in 10 minutes on July 4, 2021. He has gained a file 16 Mustard Belts. As an alternative of showing in New York final yr, Chestnut ate 57 canine — in solely 5 minutes — in an exhibition with troopers, in El Paso, Texas.
Chestnut informed The Related Press final month that whereas he was completely satisfied to compete at that occasion, he was “actually completely satisfied to be again at Coney Island.”
Chestnut mentioned he had by no means appeared in any commercials for Unimaginable Meals’ vegan sizzling canine and that Nathan’s is the one sizzling canine firm he has labored with. However he acknowledged he “ought to have made that extra clear with Nathan’s.”
