When Blacktown girl Jessica Richards steps up to the table every year for the National Cherry Festival pie eating competition, the crowd just can’t take their eyes off her.
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In one hit, the 15-year-old crumbles her pie in her mouth and hands, which usually leaves her audience startled and amazed and her competitors in a fit of laughter.
But it’s the makings of a champion, a pie-eating champion.
This year marked Jessica’s sixth win in the National Cherry Festival pie eating competition.
But now that she is 15, it was her first win in the women’s competition.
Her parents Les and Ann Richards said Jessica had been doing the competition for seven years now.
“That’s why she’s refined her technique,” Les laughed.
“It’s the only time she eats pies.”
Upon her victory in the women’s competition on Saturday afternoon, MC John R Barton asked her how does she prepare for the event.
“I don’t eat all day,” she said.
Another reigning champion in the pie eating competition is the one they call “the boy from Byron Bay”.
Ben Wilkinson is his name, who this year took out his fourth consecutive win in the men’s competition.
He told the crowd he usually ate a big breakfast and then took the rest of the morning easy to prepare for his competition.
