Only in America: Champ Devours 62 Hot Dogs

Joey "Jaws" Chestnut put away 62 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes on Monday to win a U.S. gorging contest worthy of ancient Rome, earning the coveted mustard-yellow belt for the fifth consecutive time.

A fabled stop on the world's puzzlingly fascinating competitive eating tour, "Nathan's Famous" hot dog parlor in New York's suitably cheesy Coney Island hosts the exercise in sheer gluttony each Independence Day holiday.

Chestnut, a California native who at six-foot (183 centimeters) tall and 218 pounds (99 kilograms) is far from the obese American one might assume, prepares seriously for each event and regards himself as a trained athlete.

"I came out here to win. I did what I had to do. I feel great," the 27-year-old said after chugging a bottle of indigestion medicine.

Chestnut, seven wieners short of the record 69 he scarfed at Nathan's International Hot Dog Eating Contest in 2009, admitted he had some trouble getting enough water down in the blistering hot conditions.

Fearsome Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas -- a skinny Korean-born American so-called because she out eats men four or five times her size -- downed a jaw-dropping 40 hot dogs in the same timeframe to take the female title.

Chestnut, who won $10,000 for his troubles, would be the undisputed king of hot dog eating if it wasn't for Japan's Takeru Kobayashi, who is involved in a contractual dispute with event sponsors Major League Eating.

Kobayashi, a former world record holder who won the event six times in a row from 2001 to 2006, staged an unofficial contest in New York timed to coincide with the event and claimed a new world record of 69 downed dogs.