Patrick Bertoletti, Geoffrey Esper and different contestants compete within the 2024 Nathan’s Well-known Fourth of July Worldwide Sizzling Canine Consuming Contest at Coney Island in New York Metropolis, U.S., July 4, 2024.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
There is a new high canine within the frankfurter consuming world.
Patrick Bertoletti received Nathan’s Sizzling Canine Consuming Contest, the annual competitors held on July 4, marking the top of an period after 16-time winner Joey Chestnut’s falling out with the occasion’s organizer, Main League Consuming.
Bertoletti, 39, from Illinois, consumed 58 sizzling canine on this yr’s 10-minute occasion, incomes him the Mustard Yellow Belt within the males’s class. Miki Sudo set a brand new file within the ladies’s division with 51 wieners downed. After the meat between Chestnut and MLE, the competition was thought-about rather more large open than up to now a number of years.
MLE introduced final month that it was parting methods with Chestnut, citing a rule that individuals can’t strike endorsement offers with rivals of sizzling canine maker Nathan’s. MLE alleged on the time that Chestnut had partnered with a plant-based meat various firm. Chestnut, also referred to as “Jaws,” has lately begun posting photographs on Instagram that characteristic Unattainable Meals.
“For almost twenty years we’ve labored beneath the identical fundamental sizzling canine exclusivity provisions,” the MLE stated in a press release in June. “Nonetheless, evidently Joey and his managers have prioritized a brand new partnership with a unique sizzling canine model over our long-time relationship.”
Miki Sudo reacts as she wins ladies’s division of the 2024 Nathan’s Well-known Fourth of July Worldwide Sizzling Canine Consuming Contest at Coney Island in New York Metropolis, U.S., July 4, 2024.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
Chestnut responded in a press release on the time that he was “gutted to be taught from the media” of his banishment after 19 years. The 40-year-old claimed he didn’t have a contract with MLE or Nathan’s, and stated the endorsement ban was a departure from the group’s guidelines round partnerships in prior years.
“I really like competing in that occasion, I really like celebrating America with my followers throughout this nice nation on the 4th and I’ve been coaching to defend my title,” he stated final month.
Whereas the connection seems fried in the interim, the MLE known as Chestnut an “American hero” and stated it could “love” for him to return when not representing a Nathan’s competitor. Chestnut holds consuming data in 55 classes, together with eggs, rooster wings and apple pies, the MLE instructed NBC Information.
Nathan’s web site additionally nonetheless showers Chestnut in reward. In a piece asserting his 2023 win, the New York-based firm wrote that “there is not any doubt in our thoughts who’s the king.”
Folks put on sizzling canine outfits, as they attend the 2024 Nathan’s Well-known Fourth of July Worldwide Sizzling Canine Consuming Contest, at Coney Island, in New York Metropolis, U.S., July 4, 2024
Kent J. Edwards | Reuters
Throughout ESPN’s broadcast of the 2024 contest, the channel made a number of mentions of Chestnut and what the competitors appears to be like like with out him. In a single reference, Chestnut was known as the “Warren Buffett of the buffet.”
Chestnut followers can nonetheless see him in motion this vacation.
He is livestreaming a sizzling canine consuming contest from the Fort Bliss military base in Texas as a fundraiser for charity, in keeping with a current Instagram publish. The present begins at 5 p.m. ET on Thursday.
“The 4th would not be the identical if I wasn’t celebrating by consuming an entire lot of all-beef sizzling canine,” he wrote.