Kevin Renly Wins 2026 Key Lime Pie Title in 59.6 Seconds, Eyeing First Repeat

Q: What are the messiest rules in Key West’s face-first Key Lime Pie Eating Championship?

The championship’s signature messy rule is simple: contestants must eat a full 9-inch Key lime pie without using their hands or any utensils. That means no forks, no fingers, and no neat bites — competitors have to plunge face-first into the pie. The event is intentionally built around the chaos. Contestants are expected to abandon table manners and eat directly from the pie tin, usually with whipped cream and filling flying everywhere. At the 2026 contest in Key West, 25 entrants did exactly that before hundreds of spectators at the Southernmost Beach Café. There is one notable wrinkle: the whipped cream topping is not required to be eaten. Winner Kevin Renly used that to his advantage, diving in so the cream stuck to his chest before flipping the pie to tackle the graham cracker crust more efficiently. That strategy helped him finish in 59.6 seconds. Even with the no-hands rule, some protective gear is allowed. Contestants may wear goggles or dive masks to shield their eyes from whipped cream and pie splatter. So the messiest rules are the ones that define the contest: hands off, face in, full pie down as fast as possible.

Q: His bizarre strategy won the title, but is it fast enough to ever beat the all-time record?

No. Kevin Renly’s winning time of 59.6 seconds is well off the championship’s all-time mark of 40.57 seconds, set in 2018 by Houston attorney Trey Bergman. Renly’s strategy clearly worked well enough to win the 2026 title. By shedding the whipped cream onto his chest, flipping the pie, and mixing the graham cracker crust into the filling so he could “sip it up,” he solved the contest’s main challenge: eating a 9-inch pie quickly without using his hands. That approach also improved on his runner-up finishes in 2024 and 2025. But the gap to the record is still large. Renly was about 19 seconds slower than Bergman’s 40.57-second record, which is a significant margin in a contest decided in under a minute. Bergman’s past winning time of 51.92 seconds in 2017 also remains faster than Renly’s 2026 performance. That does not mean Renly’s method has no record potential. His own comments suggest he is still refining it, and he has already turned a near-miss into a championship. If he can make the crust-and-filling technique more efficient and cut down transition time after dumping the whipped cream, he could move closer to the top historical times. Based on the current numbers, though, his title-winning run was not fast enough to threaten the record.

Q: What is the new champion’s plan to make history as the first-ever two-time winner?

Kevin Renly’s plan is straightforward: defend his newly won Key Lime Pie Eating Championship and win it again next year, which would make him the event’s first-ever two-time champion. The news report says that after finally capturing the 2026 title on his third try, Renly immediately set a new goal of becoming the first person to win the championship twice. That means returning to the Key West contest, using the hand-free technique that brought him victory in 59.6 seconds, and repeating as champion. His approach this year was highly deliberate. Renly said he dove in to shed the whipped cream, which was not required to be eaten, then flipped the pie to handle the graham cracker crust more efficiently and mixed the crumbs with the filling to “sip it up.” If he is to make history, that refined method is likely to be central to any repeat bid.

3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Jul 6

Kevin Renly, 62, captured Key West's 2026 World Famous Key Lime Pie Eating Championship by finishing a 9-inch pie in 59.6 seconds without using his hands.
Renly said the breakthrough came from stripping off whipped cream first by diving chest-first into the pie, then flipping it upside down to make the dry crust easier to eat.
The Florida Keys resident broke through after consecutive runner-up finishes in 2024 and 2025, calling the win especially meaningful because the July 4 contest fell on his wedding anniversary.
Twenty-five contestants competed before hundreds of spectators at the five-day Key Lime Festival, where Renly also said he wanted to keep the trophy in local hands.
Renly now says his next goal is a first for the event: becoming the championship's first back-to-back winner.