London - Security will be beefed up at next year's World Pie-Eating Championships after another logistics lapse saw the 2014 contest declared null and void, organisers said Friday.
“Every year something goes wrong. It's shocking. It's terrible,” said Tony Callaghan, owner of Harry's Bar in the north-west England city of Wigan, where the annual championships have been held since 1992.
On Thursday contestants tackled meat-and-potato pastries. But a delivery mix-up left them eating pies double the corrects size.
“The rules are that the reigning champion keeps the pies under lock and key the night before but we couldn't find him so the pies were delivered just 30 minutes before the contest started,” Callaghan said. “We just had to go on.”
The savouries should be 12 centimetres across, 3.5 centimetres deep and with a wall angle of 15 degrees.
Controversy has dogged the competition over its 22 years.
There was a protest when Australian rugby international Matt Dunning became the first foreigner to win in 2006.
Three years later “outside gravy” was banned because the winning pie went down in just 35.86 seconds. Umpires said extra gravy, now banned, was slashing swallowing time by up to 1.5 seconds.
In 2010 the winner was disqualified after angry fellow competitors pointed to remnant pastry on the floor.
Rigby, the 2009 winner, is likely to be allowed to keep the trophy despite the controversy.
Talking about technique, the part-time fitness instructor said there was a “lot of thinking involved” but that the “basic rule is bite, swallow, bite, swallow and breathe through your nose.”
Sapa-dpa