Joey Chestnut Makes History After Winning 14th Hot Dog Eating Contest

Joey Chestnut has won another title. On Sunday, the 37-year-old competitive eater won the men’s Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest for the 14th time in his career. And he made history with the win, eating 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes, which is one more than he did in setting the men’s record in 2020.

“It just felt good,” Chestnut, of Westfield, Indiana said to ESPN after his win Sunday. “Even if I was uncomfortable, having everybody cheer me and push me, made me feel good.” Fans came close not to seeing Chesnut make history. ESPN’s feed of the broadcast from Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York began cutting out at the five-minute mark. ESPN came back to the feed moments later, but technical difficulties interrupted the broadcast in the final seconds, and at one point, the screen turned blue, according to Yahoo! Sports. In a statement, ESPN said, “the issue was the result of a problem with uplink service provided by a vendor at the site.”

Chestnut has won 14 of the last 15 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. His only loss in that span came in 2015 against Matt Stonie. Chestnut’s dominance at the event is one of the reasons he is ranked first in the world by Major League Eating. In a 2015 interview with GQ, Chestnut opened up about his diet training process.

“It’s hot dogs, protein supplements, water,” he said. “After every practice, I can feel when I’m pretty much digested. And during that time, I’m just taking protein supplements. And then I’m drinking tons of lemon water, pretty much just do a cleanse. I want to get everything through my body… Even though I’m digesting a MASSIVE amount of food, I’ll actually lose weight while I’m doing that.”

Chestnut also talked about the aftermath of an eating competition. “The first minute’s the worst,” he said. “Before the food settles, where you’re feeling like, oh my God, where every burp feels like you might have an accident like you might be disqualified. Then the burps settle and then I have to do a bunch of interviews. I’m pretty much drunk on hot dogs. I feel like there’s something wrong with me. All my answers are goofy.”