Chestnut Captures Lucky 7

At its annual of home on the corner of Surf and Stillwell, this year’s Nathan’s International Hot Dog Eating Contest was one for posterity and the history books.

The number one ranked competitive eater in the world, Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, captured his seventh title at Coney Island, passing Takero Kobayashi for the most all time victories at the contest. Chestnut also broke another record by downing 69 hot dogs, shattering his previous personal and contest best of 62 that he set last year.

Through the first minute, fan favorites Tim “Eater X” Janus and “Notorious B.O.B.” Bob Shoudt were both keeping up with the 220 pound San Jose native. Young Matt “Megatoad” Stonie who grew up idolizing Chestnut remained close to his hero through the second minute of competition and at one point took a 20-19 lead with 8:02 left.

Chestnut would make history again today when he ate his 400^th career hot dog with 7:09 left. One minute after number 400, Chestnut broke away from Stonie getting out to a 34-28 lead with just over six minutes left.

From there, “Jaws” never looked back as he went up 50-40 on the Stonie, who set a record for eating five pounds of birthday cake, with just inside three and a half minutes left.

Chestnut finished the day with a world record 69 hot dogs to capture his seventh straight Yellow Mustard Belt, while the runner-up Stonie ended with 51. “Eater-X” finished in third place with 50.

“Jaws” ended just one hot dog behind his career goal of 70.

In the woman’s division, another perennial champion, Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas, captured victory.

The 46 year old and 101 pound Thomas’s goal for the contest was to eat 50. Even though she finished well behind her target number of hot dogs, Thomas won in a much more dramatic fashion. Thomas beat Juliet “Lovely” Lee on a judge’s decision, where she was declared to have eaten 34 ¾ as opposed to Lee’s 34, showing that David Stern can rig more than one sport.

Aside from the history set and records broken today, what made this year’s contest so special was the contest’s return to Coney Island after last October’s Super Storm Sandy. The original Nathan’s, where this contest takes place, had opened just before Memorial Day showing on the 4^th of July that this country is truly “Stronger than the Storm.”