NEW YORK — This year's Fourth of July race to stuff your face with hot dogs has a new feminine taste: a women-only pigout.
"Serena Williams didn't have to beat Roger Federer to win the Wimbledon title, and we don't think Sonya Thomas should have to beat Joey Chestnut," said master of ceremonies George Shea.
Known as "The Black Widow" of competitive eating, Thomas set a women's world record July 4, 2009, by stuffing 41 hot dogs into her 105-pound (48-kilogram) frame in 10 minutes.
Thomas and nine other women will compete Monday at Nathan's Famous hot dog stand on Coney Island just before the men's stomach-churning feast, which this year again features world champion Chestnut, nicknamed "Jaws." The 27-year-old from San Jose, California, ate his way to a fourth consecutive championship last year by downing 54 dogs for the $20,000 purse.
Notably absent again this year is his chief rival, Japan's Takeru Kobayashi, who held the world record for hot dog eating from 2001 to 2007 but plans his own eating contest on a Manhattan rooftop seven miles (11 kilometers) away.
Three Chinese contenders flew in from Beijing to join the competition. It will be televised live on ESPN, the cable television sports network.
Although women don't compete directly against men in most sports, Shea said, Thomas has beaten Chestnut in the past. She ate 181 chicken wings to his 169 during the National Buffalo Wing Festival in Buffalo last September. "She can certainly compete against the men."
Nathan's officials say they feel that women champions like the diminutive Thomas and Juliet Lee, also weighing about 105 pounds (48 kilograms), "are not getting full exposure for their accomplishments; we're selling them short." Chestnut weighs in at 200-plus pounds (more than 90 kilograms).
Hence, the added competition on the same stage as the men.
"To me, this excitement is similar to when women were given the right to vote," says 133-pound (60-kilogram) challenger Larell Marie Mele, of Long Pond, Pennsylvania.
The female competition will start at 11:30 a.m. (1530 GMT).