Patrick Bertoletti, Geoffrey Esper and different contestants compete within the 2024 Nathan’s Well-known Fourth of July Worldwide Scorching Canine Consuming Contest at Coney Island in New York Metropolis, U.S., July 4, 2024.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
There is a new prime canine within the frankfurter consuming world.
Patrick Bertoletti received Nathan’s Scorching Canine Consuming Contest, the annual competitors held on July 4, marking the top of an period after 16-time winner Joey Chestnut’s falling out with the occasion’s organizer, Main League Consuming.
Bertoletti, 39, from Illinois, consumed 58 sizzling canines on this yr’s 10-minute occasion, incomes him the Mustard Yellow Belt within the males’s class. Miki Sudo set a brand new document within the ladies’s division with 51 wieners downed. After the meat between Chestnut and MLE, the competition was thought-about way more vast open than previously a number of years.
MLE introduced final month that it was parting methods with Chestnut, citing a rule that members can’t strike endorsement offers with rivals of sizzling canine maker Nathan’s. MLE alleged on the time that Chestnut had partnered with a plant-based meat different firm. Chestnut, also called “Jaws,” has lately begun posting photographs on Instagram that function Not possible Meals.
“For practically 20 years we’ve labored underneath the identical fundamental sizzling canine exclusivity provisions,” the MLE mentioned in a press release in June. “Nonetheless, it appears that evidently Joey and his managers have prioritized a brand new partnership with a special sizzling canine model over our long-time relationship.”
Miki Sudo reacts as she wins ladies’s division of the 2024 Nathan’s Well-known Fourth of July Worldwide Scorching Canine Consuming Contest at Coney Island in New York Metropolis, U.S., July 4, 2024.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
Chestnut responded in a press release on the time that he was “gutted to study from the media” of his banishment after 19 years. The 40-year-old claimed he didn’t have a contract with MLE or Nathan’s, and mentioned the endorsement ban was a departure from the group’s guidelines round partnerships in prior years.
“I like competing in that occasion, I like celebrating America with my followers throughout this nice nation on the 4th and I’ve been coaching to defend my title,” he mentioned final month.
Whereas the connection seems fried in the meanwhile, the MLE known as Chestnut an “American hero” and mentioned it might “love” for him to return when not representing a Nathan’s competitor. Chestnut holds consuming information in 55 classes, together with eggs, rooster wings and apple pies, the MLE advised NBC Information.
Nathan’s web site additionally nonetheless showers Chestnut in reward. In a bit saying his 2023 win, the New York-based firm wrote that “there is no doubt in our thoughts who’s the king.”
Folks put on sizzling canine outfits, as they attend the 2024 Nathan’s Well-known Fourth of July Worldwide Scorching Canine Consuming Contest, at Coney Island, in New York Metropolis, U.S., July 4, 2024
Kent J. Edwards | Reuters
Throughout ESPN’s broadcast of the 2024 contest, the channel made a number of mentions of Chestnut and what the competitors appears to be like like with out him. In a single reference, Chestnut was known as the “Warren Buffett of the buffet.”
Chestnut followers can nonetheless see him in motion this vacation.
He is livestreaming a sizzling canine consuming contest from the Fort Bliss military base in Texas as a fundraiser for charity, in accordance with a current Instagram publish. The present begins at 5 p.m. ET on Thursday.
“The 4th would not be the identical if I wasn’t celebrating by consuming an entire lot of all-beef sizzling canines,” he wrote.