Transfer over, chess and fishing.
Skilled cornhole is the most recent aggressive occasion to be tarnished by dishonest allegations after a top-ranked group was accused of utilizing unlawful beanbags.
The scandal, detailed by The Wall Road Journal in a Tuesday report, is known as “BagGate” by followers, and it befell in August throughout the 2022 American Cornhole League World Championships in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
It began after participant Devon Harbaugh griped that opponents Mark Richards and Philip Lopez had been utilizing baggage that weren’t regulation in the course of the finals, in response to the report.
“I assumed the baggage had been too skinny,” Harbaugh informed the Journal.
Officers who inspected Richards and Lopez’s beanbags confirmed they weren’t regulation, prompting ESPN’s cornhole commentator Mark Pryor to comment, “They’re too small.”
“That’s going to create some drama,” he added.
With a $15,000 grand prize on the road, judges additionally inspected the baggage being utilized by Lopez and Richards’ opponents.
These had been additionally discovered to be not compliant, in response to the New York Put up, which stated that ACL rules require cornhole baggage weigh 16 ounces and be 6 inches by 6 inches when laid flat.
ACL spokesman Trey Ryder informed Fox Information that the competition continued after officers decided the violations weren’t intentional.
“It’s potential” there was dishonest, Ryder stated, however added he was “fairly assured that it wasn’t intentional.”
Lopez maintains his innocence, telling Fox Information, “I don’t know the way they turned illegal-sized. We didn’t boil the baggage.”
The “BagGate” incident is now sparking conversations among the many cornhole neighborhood in regards to the want for stricter rules whereas additionally revealing the rough-and-tumble antics that go on behind the scenes, in response to the Journal.
Since a professional cornhole participant can earn as much as $250,000 a 12 months, some gamers go to nice lengths to get a leg up on their competitors, equivalent to boiling baggage or washing them with vinegar to make them extra pliable.
“You will have the typical gamers that strive all the pieces to make the bag do various things,” cornhole professional Nate Voyer informed the Journal, including that he washes his bag with somewhat cloth softener and lets it air-dry.
Ryder stated the ACL is cracking down on “BagGate” by investing in compliance to “ensure that all these baggage are to spec” and exploring “automated bag testing.”
Nonetheless, professional cornholer Jay Corley informed the Journal that the one answer is to have “a referee similar to another sport.”
The cornhole controversy comes after the chess neighborhood was racked by a scandal during which teenage U.S. chess grandmaster Hans Niemann was accused of dishonest by used wirelessly managed vibrating anal beads or a prostate massager to obtain messages from his coach in regards to the profitable strikes.
To not be outdone, the fishing world got here by with an argument of its personal final month when two anglers at a contest in Pennsylvania had been caught with weights stuffed inside their fish. The pair, Jacob Runyan, 42, and Chase Cominsky, 35, have pleaded not responsible to dishonest and different costs.