Joey Chestnut won his 18th Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on Saturday, but he did not quite achieve the mark he was looking for.
Chestnut consumed 66 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, enough to win but short of his personal record of 76. He had consumed 40 dogs halfway through the contest, but he blamed the ongoing heat wave for how much his pace slowed in the back half.
“I don’t want to go into it saying it’s going to affect me, I want to go in trying to convince myself I can work through it,” Chestnut said of the heat, via Claire Fahy and Kaja Andric of the New York Times. “I didn’t want to let it bother me. I didn’t want to push it. Because if I push it, things get stuck in my throat.”
Temperatures rose above 90 degrees on Coney Island, and humidity contributed to the less-than-ideal conditions. Still, the total will come as a letdown, especially since it was lower than what Chestnut put up last year and outright apologized for.
Presumably, Chestnut will be back to try and break his record next year. He will be hoping the weather is a bit more cooperative than it was on Saturday.
