Sonya Thomas, the 100-lb champion competitive eater who won last year's women's Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest , is back for a little pre-Thanksgiving turkey action. The petite eating machine was in town yesterday for a Wild Turkey (yes, the whiskey)-sponsored turkey eating contest in Times Square, which she dominated despite facing some significantly larger competition.
Thomas scarfed over five pounds of meat, neatly beating the runner-up by over a pound, despite claiming that she didn't even train for this event. “It’s a mind game,” she told the Daily News. “If you lose your focus and say you’re getting full and slow down, you lose.” Her simple strategy beat out Allen "Shredder" Goldstein, whose approach was "What would a zombie do if this was a human eating contest?" and Eric "Badlands" Booker, whose game plan was "just to pick it up and rip it apart."
Here she is in action—study up and see if you can cop her style tomorrow at dinner:
