By JENNIFER PELTZ and JULIA NIKHINSON
NEW YORK (AP) — Frankfurter-munching phenom Joey “Jaws” Chestnut put a protester in a chokehold whereas gobbling his approach to a fifteenth win Monday on the Nathan’s Well-known Fourth of July sizzling canine consuming contest, powering down 63 sizzling canines and buns on the annual exhibition of extra.
In a decisive chowdown comeback, girls’s record-holder Miki Sudo downed 40 wieners and buns to win the ladies’s title after skipping final yr’s frank fest as a result of she was pregnant.
A spectator carrying a Darth Vader masks rushed the stage, momentarily disrupting the competitors. Chestnut put the protester in a quick chokehold earlier than contest officers hurried over and escorted the intruder away.
One other protester in a white stormtrooper masks had additionally snuck behind the rivals and hoisted an indication saying, “Expose Smithfield’s Deathstar.” Smithfield manufactures Nathan’s well-known hotdogs.
After the altercation, Chestnut went again to the duty at hand: Devouring extra sizzling canines.
Monday marked the competition’s return to its conventional location outdoors Nathan’s flagship store in Brooklyn’s Coney Island neighborhood. The occasion was relocated in 2020 and final yr due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s stunning to be again right here” in entrance of a throng of spectators, Chestnut advised ESPN after his feat, which the 38-year-old managed whereas carrying a surgical boot due to a leg damage.
“It hurts, however I used to be within the zone for a bit bit. I used to be ignoring it,” stated Chestnut, however the ache finally slowed his tempo within the 10-minute competitors.
Final yr, the Westfield, Indiana, resident topped his personal report by consuming 76 franks and buns.
Sudo, of Tampa, Florida, set the ladies’s report at 48 1/2 weiners and buns in 2020, earlier than taking final yr off whereas anticipating. She and Nick Wehry — a fellow aggressive eater whom she met by means of the Nathan’s contest in 2018 — welcomed son Max on July 8, 2021.
From dad’s arms, the newborn watched his 36-year-old mom notch her eighth Nathan’s win. She advised ESPN afterward that she hoped he would sometime take a message away from it.
“I need to set an instance,” she stated, “to do issues that you simply love and push your self to your absolute limits and, when issues get troublesome, to nonetheless give it a strive. And, , you would possibly really simply come out victorious.”
Sudo then took over parenting duties whereas Wehry tried for the boys’s title.
At the side of the spectacle, Nathan’s donates 100,000 franks to the Meals Financial institution for New York Metropolis.