Twenty-eight-year-old Joey "Jaws" Chestnut of San Jose, California, won his sixth consecutive hot-dog-eating title yesterday at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating championship by eating 68 hot dogs in ten minutes.
For those of you into math -- that's 6.8 hot dogs every minute!
The contest, now in its 97th year, is held every July Fourth in Coney
Island, Brooklyn, at the original Nathan's Restaurant on Surf Avenue, in
the shadow of the world-famous Cyclone roller coaster.
Chestnut beat out 30 other opponents by scarfing nearly six dozen hot
dogs and buns in the allotted time. Tin Janus of New York wasn't even a
close second, downing 52 dogs. Trailing in third place was Patrick
Bertoletti of Chicago with 51 hot dogs.
The competition drew tens of thousands of spectators and was aired live on ESPN2 and rebroadcast on ESPN at 3 p.m.
Chestnut wins $10,000 and retains his mustard-yellow belt. With six wins
under his gut, he's now tied with the infamous Takeru Kobayashi for
consecutive wins. Kobayashi was the hot-dog-eating champ from 2001 to
2007. In an upset, Chestnut unseated the champ and has remained
victorious ever since.
In a separate women's competition, Sonya "The Widow" Thomas won her
second Nathan's women's title by eating 45 hot dogs and buns in the time
limit. She wins $10,000 and a pink champion's belt.
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