Today at 12:00 p.m., competitive eating star Joey Chestnut will attempt to win the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island, a staple of Independence Day entertainment, for the seventh straight year. Live stream his attempt by clicking this link.
Chestnut isn't the only eating star on the docket; on the women's side Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas is going for her third consecutive hot dog crown.
The Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest has been an annual event since 1972, but exploded in popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In that time, Japanese contestants tended to dominate the field, especially Takeru Kobayashi, who won six straight times from 2001 to 2006.
These Japanese eaters used never-before-seen tactics for stuffing the hot dogs in their bellies, such as snapping them in half and essentially swallowing them whole in halves, while dunking the buns in water and quickly choking them down.
As Kobayashi's popularity exploded, so did the nationwide consciousness of this unique event. In 2007, more than 50,000 spectators turned out to witness the gorging firsthand. Now, telecasts of the Hot Dog Eating Contest are accompanied by play-by-play announcers, statistics, live announcers and contestants being introduced through grand entrances with flashy costumes.
While Kobayashi helped usher in the current state of the contest's visibility, Chestnut assumed the mantle from him in 2007. His reign was truly cemented in 2008, when he and Kobayashi each downed 59 hot dogs in regulation, forcing an unprecedented overtime where Chestnut finished a plate of five hot dogs quicker than the Japanese star.
In 2009, Kobayashi became a disgraced figure in Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest lore, after not being allowed to compete following his refusal to sign an exclusive contract with the event's organizers.
In 2010, he did not compete but leaped over a fence and went on stage in an attempt to disrupt the victory celebration of Chestnut. He has been removed from the "Wall of Fame," and started his own contest in which he claims to have eaten a world-record 69 hot dogs, although his record is not recognized.
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