Crowds gathered in the blazing New York heat on Saturday to celebrate the United States' 250th birthday by watching Port Richey’s Miki Sudo chew her way to a 12th straight women’s division title in the annual Nathan’s hot dog-eating contest.
Sudo downed 38¾ frankfurters in 10 minutes to again join 18-time men’s champ Joey “Jaws” Chestnut on the winners stand.
Chestnut nailed 66 wieners to beat out 13 international competitors, including Sudo’s husband, Nick Wehry, who put down a Nathan’s personal best 45½ dogs to finish fourth.
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Both winners said that the heatwave — which raised temperatures in Brooklyn to roughly 90 degrees — made the contest more difficult. On top of that, ESPN announcers said the humidity changed the consistency of the buns.
Sudo, 40, was way short of his record-setting 51 links from the 2024 competition, which is held each July 4 at famed Coney Island entertainment district of Brooklyn.
“I just said I would have to rely on muscle memory, and the crowd really carried me through to another belt today,” Sudo said.
Chestnut, 42, handily defeated the second-place finisher, Patrick Bertoletti, 41, who ate 50 hot dogs, but fell short of his own 2021 record of 76 wieners and buns — or approximately 7.6 hot dogs per minute.
Chestnut has won 10 of his past 11 appearances – he skipped the 2024 event because of a sponsorship dispute.
“It's a dream, it's electric, there's no place better on Earth,” Chestnut said breathlessly in an interview immediately after the showdown.
In a video posted on Instagram before the competition, Chestnut called competitive hot dog eating “the most patriotic sport we've got.”
After competing, Sudo joined the crowd to watch her husband compete.
They met during the 2018 Nathan’s event at a hotel gym, and Wehry proposed in 2021 immediately after a contest in which he finished off 50 boiled eggs in just over 3 minutes to set a world record. They have a 4-year-old son.
Sudo, a graduate of Hillsborough College with a degree in dental hygiene, began her Nathan’s streak in 2014, although she skipped the 2021 contest while she was pregnant.
A large crowd braved the heat to watch the event, wearing foam hot dogs on their heads and standing outside the original Nathan’s Famous restaurant that has been in Coney Island since 1972.
WUSF's Rick Mayer contributed to this report.
