Nick Wehry, husband of women’s Nathan’s hot dog contest winner Miki Sudo, accused of cheating to join ‘elite’ class of competitive eaters
This is the wurst.
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.
Nick Wehry — husband of women’s division champion Miki Sudo — is being accused of using sleight of hand trickery during the July Fourth contest in order to inflate his tally of eaten hot dogs and falsely place himself among the sport’s elite contenders, according to two sources closely involved in the competition.
“100% he cheated,” one source told The Post Tuesday.
On the day of the competition, Wehry’s score was a respectable 46.75 hot dogs when they called it out at Coney Island, good enough for a fourth-place finish, according to footage and reports, including by The Post and ESPN.
But that figure later jumped to 51.75 on the official Major League Eating (MLE) results website, allegedly giving him credit for five full wieners more than he was actually served during the competition, the sources said.
Eaters’ scores are tabulated based on the number of empty plates stacked in front of their spot after the allotted time has concluded.
Any “debris” left uneaten on the top plate on the stack — bits of bun or stray chunks of beef — is subject to judges’ determination about whether it’s deducted from their total.
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.
Although the alleged score inflation didn’t improve Wehry’s standing, it did bump him above that magic 50 figure.
“There’s a number of people who have eaten 40 hot dogs in this competition before, there’s a lot fewer who have eaten more than 50, and even fewer who have eaten over 60,” another source said.
“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.”
Patrick Bertoletti, this year’s champ, wolfed down 58 hot dogs 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.
Sudo herself hoovered 51 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, setting a new world record for women during their competition before the mens’.
One source suggested that Wehry asked for a recount after the initial judge’s tallying took place, concerned his true total wouldn’t cut the mustard in the highly competitive field of contenders.
“I can only assume he demanded a recount after stealing the plate,” the source claimed.
Such accusations are no small matter in the world of competitive eating, which takes a dim view of cheating in any form.
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.
In the videos viewed by The Post, Wehry can be seen hovering around the stage 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.
In a text, Wehry told The Post that he was aghast by the accusations, stressing he “stole nothing” and denying he “demanded a recount” — despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
“If MLE determines I was miscounted then fix my number. My placing did not change if this was the case. I would never want to take a placing or number I didn’t earn,” Wehry said.
“I would never cheat at a contest, regardless of why. People that know me know that.”
Wehry said the accusations took him by surprise, and noted they only came to light after video which appeared to show the competitive eater shuffling plates began to go viral online.
“I guess the video looks like I was mis-plated. Genuinely sorry if it was the case.”
Reached by phone, Sudo, the world’s top-ranked female competitive eater, vehemently denied any possibility that the judges botched her husband’s count.
“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.
“MLE investigated, carefully considering the complaint and reviewing video provided to us. Like many other professional sports leagues, it is our policy to not overturn judges’ decisions after the final results have been recorded.”
MLE did not comment further on the investigation, including whether it was still ongoing.
One of the source’s insisted the final scores should have shaken out differently.
“I believe the final score of 46.75 should be his final count, and also believe they should consider this was a deliberate act of cheating and disqualify him from the overall competition,” they said.
“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.
Disqualification would be an unprecedented move and has never happened in an MLE-sanctioned competition to date, though accusations are not unheard of.
In 1998’s competition, the diminutive 5-foot-6-inch, 135-pound Hirofumi Nakajima of Japan took home the coveted championship mustard belt after eating 19 franks in 12 minutes.
His primary competitor, the hulking 6-foot-7-inch, 381-pound Ed “The Animal” Krachie, accused Nakajima of taking muscle relaxing drugs to give him a competitive edge, a claim the champ denied.
Then in 2011, contest winner Steve Keiner was spotted on video appearing to shovel a hot dog into his mouth before the competition began, prompting runner-up Charles “Hungry” Hardy to demand a rematch, which Keiner refused.
