Announced results: 8 minutes
1 Pat Bertoletti 18.475 lb.
2 Geoff Esper 16.044
3 James Webb 15.319
4 Nick Wehry 12.6
5 Gideon Oji
6 Matt Raible
7 Cherish Brown
8 Rene Rovtar

James Webb has started a livestream video.

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update July 15 TMZ has an interview with Geoff Esper about the allegations:

“There has been other cheating instances in the past,” he said. “As far as I know there was never any suspensions or anything like that. So by looking at past practices, I don’t see that’s going to happen, but I think to stop it from happening in the future something should be done.”

“If there’s no incentive not to do it, why wouldn’t someone else do it?”

update July 12 USA Today has an article with statements from Wehry and Major League Eating:

“I asked Sean how many (hot dogs) he got,’’ Wehry, 35, told USA TODAY Sports by text. “Said awesome job but it looked like more. Always recount…so we did. All of us at one point or another have been shorted a plate, double plated etc.’’

The plates, served to competitors during the event, hold five dogs and buns. After the contest, empty plates are used to determine the official tally of hot dogs and buns consumed.

The extra plate boosted Wehry’s total to 51.75 from 46.75, according to the allegations.

Yeager, who competed while standing next to Wehry, told USA TODAY Sports he did not want to comment “until someone can help us get more video (of the incident) to put this thing to bed.’’

Major League Eating (MLE), which runs the Nathan’s contest, said it investigated the matter and was taking no action against Wehry, who received $1,000 for finishing fourth.

“After being made aware of the accusation stemming from last Thursday’s contest, MLE investigated the incident, carefully considering the complaint and reviewing the videos provided to us,’’ MLE said in a statement. “Like many other professional sports leagues, it is our policy to not overturn judges’ decisions after the final results have been recorded.

“Earlier today, Nick Wehry asked MLE to lower his score to 46.75 based on his touching another eater’s plates. MLE has agreed to adjust the official count. Wehry remains the 4th place finisher of the hot dog eating contest on July 4, 2024.”

The Washington Post also has an article

update July 10 The allegations about Nick Wehry made the front page of the New York Post

update The New York Post has an article about the incident
Yesterday afternoon, the following allegations were made in a long comment about the men’s 2024 Nathan’s finals:
Read the rest of this entry »

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The Major League Eating Top 50 has been updated. Joey Chestnut remains #1 despite his estrangement from the organization. Nathan’s winner Pat Bertoletti jumps to #2. The new top 10

1. Joey Chestnut (previously #1)
2. Pat Bertoletti (#9)
3. Geoff Esper (#2)
4. James Webb (#5)
5. Miki Sudo (#3)
6. Nick Wehry (#4)
7. Gideon Oji (#6)
8. Derek Hendrickson (#8)
9. Michelle Lesco (#10)
10. Darrien Thomas (#12)

Entering

• 13 Sean Yeager
• 16 Max Stanford (fixed)
• 38 Radim Dvoracek
• 45 Joey Przybylowicz
• 47 Cherish Brown
• 48 Julie Goldberg

leaving

• 16 Darron Breeden
• 28 Juan Rodriguez
• 30 Sarah Rodriguez
• 46 Brian Dudzinski
• 48 Kathryn Tesch
• 50 Doug Ecks

Notable omissions: Takuya Yamomoto, William Lyon, Max Stanford, Yasir Salem, Kylan Lee, Tandra Childress

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Badlands Booker has defended his chugging championship. One of the other competitors had a “reversal” which appears to rival Sloth in the Wing Bowl as one of the greatest reversals in competitive eating history.

Dutch Mazz is also doing a live video that will hopefully have clearer audio than Gigi’s.

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Fox 5 DC has a live video of this afternoon’s Z burger eating contest in Washington, DC.

The top 5
1T Molly Schuyler 34
1T Dan Kennedy 34
3 Joel Hansen 30
4 Robert McGee 15
5 Andrew Krawczyk 10

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Time Magazine has an article about competitive eating health risks which also offers an update on Tim “Eater X” Janus.

Tim Janus, a 47-year old ex-competitive eater who Metz has studied in scientific research, quit the sport in 2016 after 11 years “out of an abundance of caution” partly based on Metz’s findings about the risks. He was also concerned about the harms of throwing up following competition, a practice that he describes as widespread. “When you’re eating that much food, you can’t digest it all,” he says. “Your stomach is too full to move things along. Throwing up after the contest is a necessary part of the sport.”

Janus tried to collaborate with other pro eaters to share and track their health to better understand the effects of competing, but he couldn’t rally their interest. He’s now a foreign service officer in Mexico City in good health. Most of his former competitors say they’re healthy, too, but he “didn’t want to continue and realize I made a mistake.”

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Joey Chestnut did an interview with Sports Illustrated about his estrangement from MLE

SI: So you felt blindsided? This was just out there, and it wasn’t something you’d known would happen when you signed with Impossible, and it wasn’t something you’d heard about from the Shea brothers or Major League Eating?

JC: Absolutely not. Everything with Impossible was perfectly fine by all my previous agreements. They changed terms and conditions [around] exclusivity. And it’s not the first time they’ve changed some things, but it’s the first time they’ve really changed things after the fact, and I had to say, “Hey, it’s too late, I’ve already started working with this brand.” This was never an issue in the past. And they tried to dance around it—they changed a lot of terms, and then they escalated things to a degree they didn’t imagine when they started leaking information and telling people I was banned and that I turned vegan, which clearly isn’t the case.

SI: When was the last time you talked to the Shea brothers?

JC: They both sent me a little message saying, pretty much, that they’re sorry it got ugly. One of them said hopefully we can have beers in the future. But they’re not bad people, they’re just them, and that’s the way they are. I just—I didn’t expect it to go the way it did. I’m always willing to make concessions and willing to meet people in the middle. If I start something, I like to finish it, and if we started negotiating, I didn’t want to be sent away or banned. I thought we could finally get it. But it didn’t work out that way.

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Daily Mail has an interview with Joey Chestnut about his July 4 event at Fort Bliss in El Paso and his breakup with Major League Eating. He says he feels bullied by the organization and demands an apology to return to MLE events. He also discusses the possiblity of a Netflix hot dog eating contest on July 4, 2025.

However, he remains hopeful that he can get back to competing on July 4th next year, either with Netflix or at the Nathan’s Famous contest. For him to re-enter the Coney Island event though, he’d need to make up with the event organizers, Major League Eating.

‘I feel bullied,’ Chestnut shared. ‘If I’m ever going to work with them again, they’re going to have to apologize,’ Chestnut said.

According to a statement from spokesman George Shea, Major League Eating said it eventually conceded the sponsorship issue.

‘Unfortunately, this was not enough to get us to an agreement,’ the statement said. ‘We think this is a powerful tribute to our armed forces and we wish Joey the best of luck at his event.’

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update June 18 Results with full names are on the MLE contest page. Dan Downey has a contest video

Full results have been posted without full names:

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update June 19 Kylan Lee has a video

update June 16 Full results were posted this morning:

Top 4 results from the strawberry festival’s facebook video (8 minutes)
1 Geoff Esper 23.75 pounds
2 James Webb 20.5
3 Sean Yeager 16
4 Darrien Thomas 14.5

James Webb is doing a livestream of this afternoon’s strawberry shortcake in Mattituck, NY.

update The livestream was terminated just before results were announced.

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Netflix announced that Joey Chestnut will face off against Takeru Kobayashi in “Unfinished Beef”, a matchup that will be streamed on Labor Day, September 2. The competition will use beef frankfurters. Hollywood Reporter has an article about the program with the following quote from Takeru Kobayashi:

Retiring for me will only happen after I take him down one last time. This rivalry has been brewing for a long time. Competing against Joey live on Netflix means fans all over the world can watch me knock him out.

flashback July 2022 In an interview on the Pardon My Take podcast, Joey Chestnut expressed a desire to compete against Takeru Kobayashi.

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