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THE WAY TO AGE WELL IN NEW YORK
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BY COLIN MIXSON
He’s the Seabiscuit of Park Slope!
A man with an insatiable appetite
ate his way to victory during a local
creamery’s annual ice-cream-eating
contest on Nov. 17, becoming the
fi rst person to win the Slope’s “triple
crown” in competitive eating following
his triumphs in two other timed chow
downs earlier this year, according to
the neighborhood’s biggest small-business
booster.
“He shattered all records,” said
Mark Caserta, executive director of the
Park Slope Fifth Avenue Business Improvement
District. “He has the Fifth
Avenue Triple Crown!”
Veteran eater Wayne Algenio’s ability
to inhale without abandon earned
him the top prize at the contest hosted
by Fifth Avenue’s Sky Ice, whose proprietor
purposely waits for cold weather to
settle in before staging the event, where
brave competitors are each fed a pint
frozen at a rock-solid negative-12 degrees
Farenheit.
The ice cream’s temperature is so
cold that Sky Ice’s owner Jonathan
Bayer bought special spoons for his
third-annual contest, after last year’s
winner bent his utensil during the competition
and used the deformed silverware
to his advantage, Bayer said.
“He was able to use the leverage
from the bend to eject ice cream from
the pint,” he said.
Algenio — a Queens resident whose
superhuman stomach earned him fi rst
place at such past Kings County competitions
as Golden Krust’s 2015 Jamaican
Patty Eating Contest — swallowed his
pint of ice cream in a stunning one minute
and 13 seconds, 28 seconds faster
than last year’s champion fi nished the
dessert. And he wasn’t the only winner
at this year’s ice-cream-eating contest
— 10-year-old Naavah Kanto took
fi rst place in a separate, new bracket
for youngsters who wanted to try their
luck at fi lling their guts.
Algenio’s recent victory concluded
his unprecedented sweep of similar
swallowing contests in the neighborhood,
including the July empanadaeating
competition hosted by Fifth Avenue’s
Empanada Loca, and the August
pizza-inhaling spectacle staged by Artichoke
Pizza just down the block — all
three of which Algenio won by simply
powering through the pain, he said.
“Don’t stop, because once you do,
you slow down and give someone the
opportunity to catch up,” the eater said.
“I just keep going, even if my teeth hurt,
or my mouth hurts, just keep going, and
deal with the pain once you’re done.”
Now that he’s won the crown in the
neighborhood’s three biggest eating
competitions, however, Algenio said
his stomach is full of something else —
nerves.
“I have a little pressure to defend
every title,” he said.
The hungry man who fi rst tried
competitive eating in 2012 said he now
enters roughly 20 contests annually,
which this year included a dumplingdevouring
event at September’s Atlantic
Antic street fair, where he netted
second place and a cool $1,000, his largest
cash prize yet.
But Alegnio — who took home a $100
gift certifi cate to Sky Ice among other
treats for his recent win — said monetary
awards take a back seat to any trophy
his eternal hunger may earn.
“It’s not really not about the money
aspect these days,” he said. “It’s more
about having a good time, and, also, I
like trophies.”
Ice work!
Man wins third-straight Slope eating contest
with victory at an ice-cream-inhaling event
BRAIN FREEZE: Wayne Algenio, right, out ate his competitors to claim victory in Sky Ice’s
third-annual ice-cream-eating contest on Nov. 17. in Park Slope. Photo by Trey Pentecost