Patrick Bertoletti, Miki Sudo win Nathan’s hot dog eating contest as reigning champ Joey Chestnut sits out

Patrick Bertoletti of Chicago devoured down 58 sizzling canines to win his first males’s title Thursday on the annual Nathan’s Well-known Fourth of July sizzling canine consuming contest and profiting from the occasion’s largest star can be chowing down 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) away.

Bertoletti received in a decent, 10-minute race the place the chief bounced backwards and forwards. The 39-year-old Bertoletti defeated 13 rivals from around the globe in a take a look at to see who can wolf down probably the most sizzling canines in 10 minutes.

“I wasn’t going to cease consuming till the job was achieved,” Bertoletti stated.

Bertoletti bested his prior document of 55 sizzling canines on the occasion, held each Independence Day on New York’s Coney Island.

The reigning males’s champion, Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, didn’t attend the competitors this 12 months over a sponsorship tiff. As a substitute, Chestnut will compete in opposition to troopers at a U.S. Military base in El Paso later within the day. Chestnut received 16 out of 17 earlier competitions.

Bertoletti stated he misplaced weight and practiced for 3 months with “an urgency” to arrange for Thursday’s occasion, considering he had a great probability of profitable.

“With Joey not right here, I knew I had a shot,” he stated. “I used to be capable of unlock one thing that I don’t know the place it got here from. However I’m not complaining.”

Earlier Thursday, defending champion Miki Sudo of Florida received her tenth title within the girls’s division.

Sudo consumed 51 sizzling canines in 10 minutes — and set a brand new world document for ladies.

“I’m simply blissful to name this mine for an additional 12 months,” Sudo stated after profitable her tenth pink belt.

The 38-year-old dental hygiene scholar received final 12 months after forcing down 39 1/2 sizzling canines.

Sudo defeated 13 rivals, together with 28-year-old rival Mayoi Ebihara of Japan. Ebihara got here in second after consuming 37 sizzling canines in 10 minutes. She was additionally the runner-up in 2023. Sudo additionally consumed greater than her associate, former Florida bodybuilder Nicholas Wehry, who ate 46 sizzling canines within the males’s competitors.

Bertoletti’s victory marks the primary time the famed mustard belt has gone to somebody moreover Chestnut since 2015.

1000’s of followers, some carrying foam sizzling canine hats, flock annually to the occasion held outdoors the unique Nathan’s location in Brooklyn’s Coney Island, a beachfront vacation spot with amusement parks and a carnivalesque summer season tradition. Wealthy Shea, CEO of Main League Consuming, which organizes the occasion, famous how individuals nonetheless got here out in droves despite the fact that Chestnut was not there.

“Only a nice competitor, an important man, a grown man, and a person who’s made a selection to not be right here right now,” he stated of the favored consuming champ on ESPN. “However luckily for us, tens of hundreds of individuals are crowding round Nathan’s Well-known. It’s a pilgrimage yearly. This isn’t a paid Hollywood crowd. That is pleasure.”

Opponents got here from over a dozen states and 5 continents, with prospects from Brazil, Japan, the UK, South Korea, Australia and the Czech Republic vying for the coveted title and $10,000 prize cash.

Final 12 months Chestnut, of Indiana, chewed his approach to the title by downing 62 canines and buns in 10 minutes. The document, which he set in 2021, is 76.

Chestnut was initially disinvited from the occasion over a sponsorship take care of Unimaginable Meals, an organization that makes a speciality of plant-based meat substitutes and which marketed on ESPN all through the occasion on Thursday.

Main League Consuming has since stated it walked again the ban, however Chestnut determined to spend the vacation with the troops anyway.

Chestnut stated he wouldn’t return to the Coney Island contest with out an apology.

The occasion on the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, scheduled to start at 5 p.m. ET, will use conventional franks, with Chestnut making an attempt to out-eat 4 troopers in 5 minutes.

Regardless that he received’t be consuming their vegan merchandise, Unimaginable Meals is selling Chestnut’s YouTube livestream of the exhibition by flying airplanes with banners over Los Angeles and Miami. The corporate will even donate to a corporation supporting army households based mostly on the variety of sizzling canines eaten on the occasion, a spokesperson stated.