Happy Fourth of July Gator Country! One of my favorite traditions of this wonderful holiday is watching the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island. It is widely considered as the Super Bowl of competitive eating. This year, Nathan's celebrates it's 100th annual hot dog eating contest.

Although it has been around for 100 years, Nathan's Famous did not start keeping record of the contest until 1972. There are both men's and women's competitions. The rules are simple: ten minutes to eat as many hot dogs as you possibly can.

Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, the number one ranked eater in the world according to Major League Eating, has won the last eight consecutive Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contests. Matt Stonie, who finished second last year behind Chestnut, was considered to be the lone threat to ending Chestnut's dominance of the event.

As the clock began, Chesnut and Stonie quickly separated themselves from the rest of the pack. Halfway through the ten minutes, Stonie was able to get a couple hot dogs lead and managed to keep the pace and hold off the eight time defending champion. Stonie finished with 62 hot dogs while Chesnut was only able to consume 60.

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There was also a women's hot dog eating contest. Since being implemented in 2011, there have only been two women to ever win the contest. Those two women are Sonya Thomas and Miki Sudo. Thomas won the first three women's contest and Sudo pulled off the shocking upset last year.

This year, the two women faced off yet again. Miki Sudo was able to win her second consecutive hot dog eating contest by eating 38 hot dogs compared to 34 from Sonya Thomas.

 

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