Miki Sudo sets new record at Nathan’s Famous Hotdog Eating Contest
The competitive eating world has been rocked by hard-to-swallow claims that a contender in this year’s Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest cheated to beef up his score.
Every plate on the competition table starts out loaded with five hot dogs, so each plate left behind counts for five dogs eaten as the judges determine the participants’ scores.Wehry has been accused of “stealing plates” from another competitor’s stack and putting them on his own place setting to raise his score above 50 — which is considered the threshold separating everyday competitors from the sport’s true top dogs.
“For someone to have on the record that they ate more than 50, makes you part of a very small elite club of competitive eaters.”and buns in the 10-minute gorge-fest, defeating 13 competitors for the title and taking home a prize of $10,000 as mustard-belt holder. Second- and third-place finishers Geoff Esper and James Webb put away 53 and 52, and took home prizes of $5,000 and $2,500, respectively. Wehry, in fourth place, would have gotten $1,500 – while the fifth place winner got $1,000.
A lengthy post on an internet forum devoted to eating competitions includes videos of this year’s contest along with time codes that purport to show Wehry acting suspiciously, including moving plates around on the table. well after the competition was over, appearing to pick up and move items on the table including at least one empty plate which he twirls in his hand end over end.Later, Wehry seems to put the plate in his own pile. On a recount, Wehry’s total was increased to 51.
“I was watching Nick the entire time, there is a camera on him the entire time, there’s no way the judges got it wrong,” she told The Post before abruptly hanging up.Major League Eating, which sanctions Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest and handles the official judging of the event, said that it conducted an official investigation after being made aware of the accusations.
“I think it would be the best possible situation and a move to make sure that the integrity of the contest going forward is just withheld,” they added.
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