Joey ‘Jaws’ Chestnut has proved, once again, that he is an elite competitor and reinforced his standing as the most dominant individual athlete of his generation. History was made in Coney Island as Chestnut pushed himself to the limits of human endurance en route to his 3rd Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest in a row and 11th overall. After cracking the 70 dog threshold at the 2016 competition, Chestnut embodied his nickname as his eyes turned black and rolled into the back of his head as he devoured rack after rack of hot dogs like a great white ripping apart a straggling sea lion. When the dust cleared 10 minutes later, Chestnut sat on the stage unmatched, with a new world record of 74 dogs in his stomach. Like all great sporting events, the contest was not without controversy. When the final horn sounded, the score card of the official hot dog counter assigned to Chestnut read 64. While 64 would still have won him the competition, Chestnut is such a cerebral eater that he knew he consumed more meat. Upon seeing the number, Chestnut immediately approached the head official and requested that they go to the tape and re-count his total. After reviewing the tape (basically VAR), the officiating committee determined that there had been a counting error and that Jaws had actually wolfed down a mystifying 74 dogs and set the new world record. After proving his doubters wrong when he was written off by some following his 2015 loss to Matt Stonie, Chestnut has been routinely operating at the 70 dog level, which equates to the ‘death zone’ of competitive eating. His resurgence has been both thrilling and inspiring as he continues to set the high water mark for the sport. Chestnut holds 43 world records across all eating disciplines, but I believe that he will come back hungrier for more dogs in 2019.