By ALIYAH SHAHID
Posted: 4:09 am
October 13, 2008
He'll take the last three slices to go.
Hot-dog eating champ Joey Chestnut downed 45 slices of pizza, nearly six whole pies, in 10 minutes yesterday to win the Famous Famiglia World Pizza Eating Championship in Times Square.
"I feel great. My stomach feels good," said Chestnut, the two-time defending champion of the famous Nathan's Fourth of July wiener contest in Coney Island.
In addition to the frankfurter titles, Chestnut has also won eating competitions in hamburgers, pulled pork and asparagus. But until yesterday, he had never won a pizza contest.
Chestnut, 24, had both hands working - funneling slices into his mouth with the right hand, while folding the next slice with his left hand.
The pizzas were 16 inches in diameter and cut into eight slices, meaning that Chestnut downed more than 5 ½ cheese pies in his 10 minutes of eating fury, which earned him a $5,500 prize.
Patrick Bertoletti, 23, of Chicago, came in second with 43 slices, good for $3,500.
"My strategy was to not chew," Bertoletti said.
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