Meet the top competitors in the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest

There are new dogs in this fight.

This year’s Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest is on the line after 16-time champion Joey Chestnut was banned from the annual Fourth of July event after signing a deal with vegan protein supplier Impossible Foods.

“With Joey out, a door opens wide,” said Nick Wehry. He is one of 14 hopefuls who will compete in the men’s event at the famed Coney Island Showdown. (Another 14 eaters will compete in the women’s event.)

To be eligible to compete, eaters must win a regional qualifying event, have been a past champion, or be specially invited by Major League Eating, the organization that oversees competitive eating events.

Competitors have 10 minutes to eat as many hot dogs and buns as they can on the Stillwell and Surf Avenues stage. Utensils and condiments are prohibited. Vomiting is grounds for disqualification. Any sausage in a competitor’s mouth at the buzzer counts toward the total, as do partially smoked sausages.

Last year, Chestnut won by eating 62 hot dogs; in 2021, he set a record by gobbling down 71. (This year, after being ousted from Nathan’s, he’ll compete in another hot dog-eating contest with soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas.)

The prize money is $20,000, with $10,000 going to the winners of the men’s and women’s events.

Miki Sudo, 38, won the women’s title in 2023, her ninth championship. She told the Post that this year “is going to be incredibly exciting” with Chestnut out.

“I think it’s going to be a tough fight that could even be won by a quarter of a hot dog,” said Sudo, who holds the women’s world record, having eaten 48.5 hot dogs in 10 minutes. “With Joey out, you’ll see basically five or six guys pushing each other.”

Look at.

Nick Wehry

Age: 35
2023 Hot Dog Eating Contest Performances: 4th place, I ate 45 hot dogs
Highlight of his career: Set a world record in 2021 by eating 50 hard-boiled eggs in 3 minutes and 4 seconds

“This will be my seventh year of competing, I’ve been climbing,” said Wehry, who lives in Tampa, Florida. In his first few years of competing, he placed in the bottom half, but in 2021, he placed third, his best performance yet. The last two years, he’s placed fourth.

One half of a power couple—he got engaged to Sudo after they met in the hotel gym the morning of the 2018 hot dog contest—Wehry competes full time, which leaves him plenty of time to train.

He trains by eating as many hot dogs as he can in the damp backyard of his Florida home.

“The humidity is 1,000 percent and it’s a billion degrees … the body doesn’t function very well, especially if you’re not used to it,” he told the Post. “People forget that we’re not just eating hot dogs, we’re pushing our bodies to the limit.”

Wehry hopes the tough conditions will give him an advantage in Brooklyn, where the forecast for Thursday is in the early 80s.

“This is going to make July 4th at Coney Island a breeze,” he said.

Geoffrey Esper

Age: 49
2023 Hot Dog Eating Contest Performances: 2nd, with 49 hot dogs
Highlight of his career: He consumed 21 pounds of strawberry shortcake in 8 minutes in June 2023 to set his third strawberry shortcake record

For the past three years, the Oxford, Massachusetts, high school teacher has come in second to Chestnut, so it might finally be his time.

“If I finish second again, I’ll be like, ‘Oh, not again,'” he told the Post. “It’s a lot more pressure, I can tell you that.”

Given his job as a teacher, he doesn’t have as much time to practice as some of his competitors, but he makes up for it with his strong work ethic and mastery of a common sausage-festing technique.

“I take two hot dogs at a time and eat them, and then I eat the buns,” he explains. “I put the hot dogs side by side, and while I’m doing that, I dip the first bun, and sometimes I squeeze it too to get the water out.”

He notes that the hot dog event, compared to other culinary competitions, is as much about speed as it is about stomach capacity.

“It’s not as easy as other races like the strawberry contest where the one with the biggest belly wins,” he said. “You have to focus on what you’re doing to eat that much.”

Chestnut’s departure thrust him into the spotlight, a position he doesn’t relish.

“These other guys go crazy on camera,” he said. “I’m a little more shy, so it’s more intimidating for me.”

James Webb

Age: 35
2023 Hot Dog Eating Contest Performances: 3rd, with 47 hot dogs
Recent highlights: Last month he set a record by eating 70 glazed doughnuts in 8 minutes.

The full-time competitive eater from Sydney, Australia, holds world records for chicken wings and doughnuts, but this is only his third hot dog eating contest.

“As an Australian, we don’t really eat hot dogs,” he told the Post. “It was a huge culture shock and an enlightening experience for me.”

The secret to his success is going to the gym as often as possible. “I do weight training morning and evening every day to stimulate my appetite,” he explains.

Frankfurters are hard to find in Australia, so he had to travel to the United States to prepare them.

He flew to Dallas, Texas, and got an Airbnb a few weeks ago to start working with Nathan’s Hot Dogs ahead of the holiday contest.

“I go to Walmart, empty the shelves and cook delicious food in the backyard,” he told the Post. “The last four days, I’ve eaten nothing but hot dogs. I work out, work out, work out.”

But don’t count on him to take any sausages on the plane home. He’s sick of barbecued sausages.

“I’m 100% sure I won’t touch a hot dog until this time next year.”

Patrick Bertoletti

Age: 39
2023 Hot Dog Eating Contest Performances: Did not compete
Highlight of his career: Gobbled down a record 39 dozen oysters in 8 minutes in New Orleans in June 2011

Originating in Chicago and nicknamed “deep dish,” this dish has been setting world records with everything from blueberry pie to corned beef and cabbage for nearly two decades.

The longtime competitive eater has competed in Nathan’s on and off since 2007, placing as high as third in 2010. After some time away from the Coney Island boardwalk, he’s back this year with his eyes on the prize.

Gideon Oji

Age: 32
Hot Dog Eating Contest 2023 Performance: 6th place with 36 hot dogs
Highlight of his career: Consumed 1.3125 gallons of New Mexico green chile stew in 6 minutes in 2016

Oji stands 6 feet 11 inches tall and weighs 225 pounds, making him one of the tallest competitive eaters on the circuit. (Unsurprisingly, the Morrow, Georgia, native played college basketball at Clayton State University.)

He is currently ranked 7th in the world in competitive eating and has excelled at single events, eating two pounds of bologna in 52 seconds and munching through 25.5 bags of chopped kale salad in 8 minutes.

Darrien Thomas

Age: 25
Hot Dog Eating Contest 2023 Performance: 9th with 27.5 hot dogs
Highlight of his career: Winner of the Smoke’s Poutinerie Amateur Poutine Tasting Contest in 2017

Could a Canadian win such a coveted award for a time-honored American tradition? Thomas certainly hopes so. In fact, he is only the second Canadian to qualify for the competition since its inception in 1916.

At just 5’5″ and 150 lbs, he’s certainly not as big as his competitors. But what he lacks in size, he makes up for in technical skills and the ability to plunge a hot dog bun into water at high speed. He’s also known for his speed at shelling everything from pistachios to crayfish.

Thomas got his start at age 16 when he entered a pizza eating contest in Ontario after one of the contestants didn’t show up. Today, nine years later, he’s ranked No. 12 in the world and No. 1 in Canada.