On twitter, Juan “More Bite” Rodriguez accuses Erik “The Red Denmark” of “Pocket Dog Gate”. While Carmen Cincotti’s video shows Erik Denmark inserting his hand in his pocket immediately following the Nathan’s Washington, DC qualifier (around the 14:20 mark), it is not 100% clear if he had a hot dog in his hand. Denmark was credited with 32 hot dogs for the contest, which edged out Steve Hendry by one hot dog for the wild card.

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Here is a complete list of all people who have qualified or received byes to compete in the 2016 Nathan’s finals. It is possible there will be some no-shows.
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Here are the personal bests for the past year for people who competed in the 2015-16 Nathan’s qualifier circuit. Steve Hendry did not receive a finals spot despite having the 7th best overall total. Carmen Cincotti’s surprise performance prevented the 2015-16 qualifier circuit from having no 40+ totals for the first time since 2004-5. (The leftmost column does not take ties into account.)

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update Jun 26 MLE has a facebook live video of the end of the contest

Joey Chestnut ate 73.5 hot dogs in 10 minutes as a non-competitor to set a new record. Results Part 1 | Part 2

1) Carmen Cincotti, 42 only 40+ qualifier performance of circuit
2) Erik Denmark 32, takes wild card
3) Pablo Martinez 26
4) Bill Myers 13.5
5) Lloyd Ingling 8
6) Jesse Rifkin 5

1W) Hillary Andrews 9
2W) Lesley Ryder 7.5

Lesley Ryder and Hilary Andrews are the females expected to compete.

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“Famous Nathan: A Family Saga of Coney Island, the American Dream, and the Search for the Perfect Hot Dog” a book by Lloyd Handwerker, a grandson of Nathan Handwerker, the founder of Nathan’s famous was released yesterday. Lloyd Handwerker will give a talk about the book tonight at Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn.

In the book, Lloyd Handwerker corroborates the claim made by Mortimer Matz in a 2010 New York Times interview that the 1916 origin story for Nathan’s is a fabrication.

(image from page 5 of the book)
update Jun 23Daily Beast has an article about the book with this paragraph about the contest:

So, what would Nathan have thought about the modern-day popularity of the hot dog eating contest? Lloyd was a bit hesitant when I asked him. “Some of the old timers are disgusted by it,” he admitted. While he wasn’t sure if his grandfather would have agreed with them, he “couldn’t deny the advertising impact on the company.” But on the other-hand “he hated waste” and each night he even inspected the garbage to see what people weren’t finishing.

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With one qualifier left, here are the winners of the previous competitions:

Wild Card Leaders

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update June 20 Full results Part 1 | Part 2

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Here are the top debut Nathan’s hot dog performances based on announced results, which is an incomplete body of information. It appears Darron Breeden’s 28 is the top performance for someone who had not previously been mentioned on eatfeats since this website was started in 2005.

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