Joey Chestnut Downs 69 Hotdogs To Grab Coney Island Title

For years and years now, competitive eater Joey Chestnut has drowned himself in hotdogs on the Fourth of July. 2013 proved to be no exception for Chestnut, who hit the stage to compete this morning on Coney Island, where 40,000 individuals gathered to witness a group of competitive eaters and the yearly hotdog extravaganza. This year’s 10-minute competition led Chestnut to his seventh win in a row—an achievement that is both mesmerizing and impressive.

Every year on the holiday, Nathan’s Famous hotdogs puts on an annual eating competition on the island. The tradition stems back to hotdog eating contests on Coney Island that began to be held annually beginning in the 1970s. Since the turn of the century, the contest has become even more wildly popular, garnering media interest due to competitors like Chestnut, and Japan’s Takeru Kobayashi, who won the contest each year from 2001 to 2006.

Chestnut seemed to be ready for the competition early on Thursday, taking to Twitter to joke about his upcoming ordeal.

When thinking about hotdog contests, usually my mind goes to the sheer amount of meat and bread that must go into the contenders' bodies during the 10-minute run. This year, Chestnut consumed 69 hotdogs in order to win the contest, which means that all kinds of stomach stretching must have been going on, as well as a bonanza of both calories and sodium. Earlier the Bleacher Report tweeted out a disturbing fact about Chestnut’s eating feat.

That’s more calories than most of us consume in an entire week, but luckily Chestnut is trained for this sort of thing. Hopefully, we’ll see him back at the Coney Island competition again next year.