Spirit of 76: Champ Chestnut sets sizzling dogs keep

NEW YORK — Chowdown champ Joey “Jaws” Chestnut broke his contain file to gulp to a 14th hold within the boys’s Nathan’s Favorite Hot Dog Drinking Contest on Sunday, while Michelle Lesco took the girls folk’s title.

Chestnut downed 76 franks and buns in 10 minutes. That’s one greater than he did in environment the boys’s file final yr, when the competition unfolded indoors and with out fans thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.

“It correct felt correct,” Chestnut, of Westfield, Indiana, stated in an ESPN interview after his hold Sunday. “Even though I used to be miserable, having every person cheer me and push me, it made me feel correct.”

Lesco, of Tucson, Arizona, downed 30¾ dogs in 10 minutes and called her hold “an astonishing feeling.”

Reigning girls folk’s champ and file holder Miki Sudo skipped this yr because of she’s staring at for a toddler in a pair of weeks with fellow aggressive eater Reduce Wehry. He vied for the boys’s title nonetheless came up quick.

The annual Fourth of July frankfurter fest most frequently occurs commence air Nathan’s flagship store in Brooklyn’s Coney Island neighborhood. But this yr’s planning took recount amid shifting coronavirus restrictions, and the match used to be held in a nearby minor league baseball stadium, Maimonides Park, with 5,000 spectators.

Chestnut stated he’d missed the fans final yr.

“I’ve been having a sit up for this all yr,” he urged ESPN in an interview before this yr’s competitors.