On a day that’s celebrated by all Americans everywhere - but especially those in Coney Island, the US is celebrating the accomplishments of Joey Chestnut and Miki Sudo - the reigning champs of competitive hot dog eating, each one winning by eating 62 and 39.5 hot dogs, respectively.
Each one of the reigning champions is also a world record holder.
And their fans came out in full force, filling up Stillwell Avenue starting at 9 in the morning, despite the sun and the heat.
Joey Chestnut and Miki Sudo each have a dedicated fanbase - and so does this hot dog-eating competition, which draws in a ton of the locals who love to play up for the fanfare.
Joey Chestnut really amped up his fans last year after putting a protestor that tried to rush the stage in a chokehold - all while eating.
Cutting through the thick crowd in the heat of the morning, you can find individuals in homemade hot dog hats and costumes as well as those who came to celebrate the theme of the neighbourhood in their Warriors jackets.
The morning always starts out with fun performances and local voices. Those in attendance could hear the host, George Shea, delivering a karaoke performance of ABBA’s “Fernando” and revving up the crowd for a good time.
Inside the Hot Dog Eating Competition - Women's champs
As we got to hear a few musical acts, the staff began to bring the famous hot dogs on stage for the women’s competition, which was set to go first. That’s when this seemingly silly American moment began to get tense.
It is a competition, after all.
Shea announced the 15 competitors in the women’s competition with such gusto and poetry, his copywriters should be commended. With full energy, the crowd loved every minute of it.
Fifteen women took the stage, each with a personal ref counting how many hot dogs they ate, entirely full of hope and competitive spirit. Most of the competitors are serious eating athletes - they almost all had titles and previous wins for ramen and pie-eating contests from around the US. In order to even compete today, they each had to have qualified in accordance with Major League Eating , the company that puts this all on for the country.
In the spirit of patriotism, each woman here will guzzle down as many hot dogs as they can in 10 minutes. And that time goes by quickly.
Champion Miki Sudo seemed to go neck and neck with new Japanese competitor, Mayo Ebihara in a stiff race that would quickly become any reporter’s favourite sport. Ebihara danced for the crowd as she pounded down hot dogs, and for a second there, the crowd flipped out, thinking that she could beat the favourite to win, Miki Sudo.
In what was a serious moment, the staff and commissioner had to be brought on to check the video footage before declaring to an impatient crowd that Sudo had indeed secured her 9th win in the contest.
Thunder and lighting leaves crowds scampering on Coney Island's 4th of July competition
With the men’s competition scheduled to go on about an hour after the women’s, the stage got to see some light-hearted fun with some local flavour - from a Coney Island rapper, a Bollywood dance troupe, Nathnan’s own cheerleaders, and a singer who of course, belted out the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ in the spirit of competition.
But during the singing and dancing - the sky had its own plans.
With lighting afoot and a large dark cloud ready to open up on the crowd, people were dead set on staying there to see Joey Chestnut take home another world title.
While rain damped the competition for about an hour and a half, leaving organizers scrambling to figure out what to do next - many began to take shelter among the many stores and restaurants nearby.
Miki Sudo
As the Mirror team did too, we got a special chance to hang out in the competitor’s arena with the women’s champ - Miki Sudo.
She expressed that was a little disappointed in this year’s number (of hot dogs eaten), but says, “now we have more serious competition on the women’s side and I’ve gotta step up my training!”
Sudo was a gracious winner as she told reporters that she was truly inspired by Mayo Ebihara, and the two even got to chat as the hald-Japanese Sudo is plenty fluent in Ebihara’s native language.
“She did everything, and she wasn’t afraid to dunk, she wasn’t afraid to get messy, I give her so much credit!”
When asked what advice she'd give newer competitors, she said: “I see it most amongst women - you can’t be afraid to look silly. That’s the number one rule for a lot of it. You can't be afraid to jump in and get silly… don’t be self-conscious!”
“I only did like three practices this year. Now that I’ve got strong competition, I’ll be stepping up my training, stepping up my practices, and I think we’ll only see bigger numbers from here!”
Of course, the question most people have on their minds is - how does one feel after eating nearly 40 hot dogs?
Miki Sudo laughed at the question but eventually answered, “I mean, right now, I have almost 40 hot dogs in my stomach, I don’t know how much that weighs, but my son weighs 35 lbs, so when I was carrying him around, that was pretty difficult."
"I don’t know, I don’t do this every day. It would not be okay,” says Sudo.
Joey Chestnut gets his win - rain or shine
Once the rain dried up, the competitors came out to address the crowd, which had grown thinner, but as the sun came out, you could see the hordes of Chestnut fans making their way back through the police barricades. Most would agree that a cancellation would be downright un-American.
Chants of “Joey! Joey! Joey!” could be heard around the block as everyone watched and waited for the competition to be back on.
They got their wish, because, after all, what’s a birthday party for the country if someone doesn’t eat 62 hot dogs?
And of course, Joey Chestnut seized his victory much to the delight of crowds watching around the world through social media and ESPN broadcasts. Though both winners weren’t thrilled with their numbers as the weather really made them each lose focus for different reasons - they both say they’ll be back again next year.
“It got hard,” Chestnut told the crowd.
“It’s weird, but no excuses I didn’t break the record, but I’ll be back next year and find a way to do it.”
And the world will be back to watch these local legends and international competitors do this all over again next year.
