Joey Chestnut Devours 70 Hot Dogs in 10 Minutes, Setting New Record

What better way to celebrate America than by cramming dozens of hot dogs down one's throat? Yesterday, famed hot dog purveyor Nathan's Famous hosted its annual hot dog eating contest in Coney Island, and competitive eating icon Joey Chestnut emerged victorious.

Chestnut set a new record by choking down an insane 70 hot dogs (with corresponding buns) in just 10 minutes, the Associated Press reports. He thoroughly spanked the competition, with second-place finisher Matt Stonie finishing just 53 dogs.

Chestnut dominated the Nathan's Famous contest eight years in a row until last year, when Stonie beat him with 62 hot dogs eaten. Besides the glory, Chestnut also takes home $10,000 and the championship belt, which is appropriately mustard yellow in color.

Here, a few fascinating stats gleaned from the competition:

6.9: hot dogs Chestnut consumes per minute, on average
8: consecutive years Chestnut went undefeated in the Nathan's contest
20: seconds it takes Chestnut to guzzle an entire gallon of water during training
38: International Federation of Competitive Eating records Chestnut currently holds
41: hot dogs eaten by the third-place finisher
19,600: calories consumed by Chestnut during the contest, approximately

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