Coney Island once again became the centre of attention on the Fourth of July as Joey Chestnut and Miki Sudo secured victories at Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. The annual US Independence Day showdown saw both champions continue their remarkable dominance in competitive eating. While Chestnut scarfed down 66 wieners to win the men’s category title for the 18th time, Sudo ate 38.75 hot dogs for her record 12th victory.
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“Eating here on the Fourth of July is a dream; it’s electric. There’s no place better on Earth,” Chestnut told the New York Post. The win earned him the coveted Mustard Yellow Belt and $10,000. It was his second consecutive title.
The competitive eater has won 18 of his 21 appearances at the internationally televised event. He dominated second-place finisher Patrick Bertoletti, who ate 51 hot dogs, but still fell short of his own 2021 record of 76 hot dogs and buns.
Chestnut conceded that the 90-degree weather wore him down and hurt his usual high-speed eating. “I usually don’t have this much spare room left over, but we’ll see, something cold. It’s definitely hard. I didn’t want to go into it saying it’s going to affect me, I wanna go into it and convince myself that I can work through it,” he said.
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“I didn’t want to let it bother me. I didn’t want to push it because if I push it, then things will get stuck in my throat and then I just needed to stay calm and keep going,” he added.
Sudo, on the other hand, holds the women’s record of 51 hot dogs, set in 2021. After her own contest, Sudo cheered from the stands for her husband, who proposed to her in 2021 immediately after setting a world record by eating 50 boiled eggs in just over three minutes.
“I just said I would have to rely on muscle memory, and the crowd really carried me through to another belt today,” she told the Associated Press.
The iconic competition dates back to 1972 and is held annually in front of the original Nathan’s Famous restaurant on Coney Island in New York.
