Hundreds of sausages in buns have been stuffed into faces in the annual Fourth of July hot dog eating competition in the US.
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Patrick Bertoletti gobbled up 58 hot dogs to win his first men's title in the Nathan's Famous event, taking advantage of the absence of the event's biggest star.
In the women's competition, defending champion Miki Sudo won her 10th title and set a new world record by downing 51 links.
Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, the reigning men's champion and winner of 16 out of 17 previous competitions, didn't attend this year over a sponsorship tiff.
Instead he competed later in the day against four soldiers at a US Army base in El Paso, Texas, where he wolfed down 57 hot dogs in five minutes.
Bertoletti, 39, of Chicago, said he lost weight and practiced for three months with "an urgency" to prepare for the event, thinking he had a good chance of winning.
"With Joey not here, I knew I had a shot," Bertoletti said. "I was able to unlock something that I don't know where it came from."
Bertoletti bested his prior record of 55 hot dogs at the event, which is held every Independence Day on New York's Coney Island, a beachfront destination with amusement parks and a carnivalesque summer culture.
Earlier, in the women's competition, Sudo, a 38-year-old dental hygiene student from Florida, set the new record a year after forcing down 39 1/2 hot dogs in 2023.
Sudo outdid her partner, former Florida bodybuilder Nicholas Wehry, who ate 46 hot dogs in the men's competition.
Competitors came from over a dozen states and five continents, with prospects from Brazil, Japan, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Australia and the Czech Republic vying for the coveted title and $10,000 prize money.
Bertoletti's victory marks the first time the famed mustard belt has gone to someone besides Chestnut since 2015.
Last year Chestnut, of Indiana, chewed his way to the title by downing 62 dogs and buns in 10 minutes. The record, which he set in 2021, is 76.
He was initially disinvited from the event over a sponsorship deal with Impossible Foods, which specialises in plant-based meat substitutes and which advertised on ESPN throughout the event Thursday.
Major League Eating has since said it walked back the ban, but Chestnut said he wouldn't return to the Coney Island contest without an apology.
Australian Associated Press
