NEW YORK – This year’s Fourth of July race to stuff your face with hot dogs has a new feminine taste: Nathan’s Famous 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.
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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 frame in 10 minutes.
Thomas and nine other women will compete Monday 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, Calif., ate his way to a fourth consecutive championship last year by downing 54 dogs for the $20,000 purse.The competition will be televised live on ESPN.
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.
This time, religious vows
MONACO – A day after the civil wedding that transformed one-time Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock into the Princess of Monaco, she and Prince Albert II exchanged vows in a star-studded religious ceremony Saturday.
VIP guests including Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld, former James Bond actor Roger Moore and French President Nicolas Sarkozy drew cheers from the thousands-strong crowd of Monaco residents invited to follow the ceremony on screens just outside the palace.
But none of the celebrity guests elicited nearly as much excited applause as the bride, who wore a dress in off-white duchess silk by Giorgio Armani Prive with a dramatic boat-neck collar and a 5.5-yard-long train.
The couple exchanged 18-carat white gold platinum rings by Cartier. As Albert, who wore a white military suit, slipped the ring onto her finger, he winked, and as Charlene put his on, she burst out into a broad smile that contrast with the demure expression she wore throughout most of the hour-and-a half long ceremony.
Though she appeared to tear up behind her flowing veil as she entered the palace, neither bride nor groom let much emotion transpire.
Johansson, Reynolds divorced
LOS ANGELES – The Green Lantern and Black Widow, or at least the actors who play them on the big screen, are officially single again.
Court records show a judge finalized the divorce of Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson on Friday in Los Angeles.
Reynolds, who appeared in the recent film adaptation of the DC comic “The Green Lantern,” filed for divorce in December.
The filing came shortly after the couple announced they had split.
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