It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. And Miki Sudo is up to the task.
Last year, the reigning women’s champion in Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest gobbled down 39-1/2 dogs and buns in just ten minutes to maintain her legendary status as the event’s nine-time winner.
“My love for the sport shows, hopefully,” Sudo told Spectrum News in an interview one day before she attempts to defend her title in the annual Coney Island extravaganza.
Despite her 5’ 4” frame, the 38-year-old Floridian won the Nathan’s contest every year from 2014 to 2020, when she stuffed down 48-1/2 dogs to take the title.
“I’m so excited to be back,” she said, while acknowledging “some huge competition, especially in the form of Mayoi Ebihara out of Japan. I expect high numbers out of her, so I’m prepared to put up some even larger numbers.”
Ebihara ranks 14th among female competitive eaters globally, according to Major League Eating. Last year, she came in second after downing 33-1/2 dogs during the Nathan’s contest – six fewer than Sudo, who ranks No. 1.
Sudo has proven her iron stomach during a multitude of contests that had her wolfing 16-1/2 pints of ice cream in six minutes, 14 pounds of wild rice hotdish in eight minutes and 368 slices of cheese in eight minutes.
“A lot of these contests test our capacity, but I usually don’t run out of space,” Sudo said. “I start to fight flavor fatigue. That’s over the course of 10 minutes when your taste buds and then your brain just wants to slow things down because the overwhelming, whether it’s sweet or savory, the taste just kind of starts to get to me over the course of 10 minutes.”
Sudo said she uses liquids to offset taste overload. When she’s powering down donuts, her preferred drink is black coffee. When it’s dogs, “I want something sweet. I actually have a strawberry-orange-banana zero-calorie drink mix.”
Sudo’s advice to aspiring competitive eaters is to sign up for an event and see if they like it. And if they do, stick with it as long as they’re having fun.
“You don’t choose competitive eating,” she said. “It’ll kind of choose you.”
This year, Sudo is hoping to beat her 2020 record.
“I’d love to hit that 50 mark because 48-1/2 is such a messy number, especially with the half. So if you round it up to 49 and then 50 is right around the corner is kind of my logic. I’ve done it at home multiple times.”
Sudo also addressed the elephant in the room about Thursday's event: the absence of reigning men's champion Joey Chestnut, the 16-time winner of the Fourth of July event and the No. 1-ranked Major League Eating competitor, who will not take part in the Nathan's contest due to a competing sponsorship.
While she lamented Chestnut's absence as a longtime friend, she expressed excitement about the prospect of a new men's champion.
"Joey's been such a great friend for over 10 years, on and off the circuit, and I'm so happy that he had such a lucrative opportunity to go work with another company," she said. "Obviously, I'm going to miss him, but with that said, I think what this means for the contest is you'll see five or six other guys really push themselves, push each other, put up personal bests all across the board."
"This contest on the guy's side might be won by a fraction of a hot dog. It could possibly go into overtime. I think it's more exciting than it's been in recent history."
There have only been two champions not named Joey Chestnut in the last 20 years: Matt Stonie, who snapped Chestnut's eight-year winning streak by eating 62 hot dogs in 2015, and Takeru Kobayashi, who won the event for six years straight until Chestnut won his first title in 2007 with a then-record 66 hot dogs and buns (HDB).
Chestnut and Kobayashi will face off in a live Netflix hot dog eating event on Sept. 2, Labor Day.