A man trying to eat a half-pound glazed doughnut in 80 seconds as part of a Denver doughnut shop's eating challenge choked to death, one of two people who died in such contests this past weekend.

Travis Malouff, 42, died early on Sunday of asphyxia due to obstruction of the airway, a coroner said. He had been participating in a contest to eat a doughnut the "size of a small cake," witness Julia Edelstein said on Tuesday.

Winners get the doughnut for free and a button saying they won the challenge, which Voodoo Doughnuts said it was suspending, according to statement given to Denver news station KUSA-TV.

The station first reported Malouff's death, which came the same day as that of 20-year-old Caitlin Nelson, who had choked during a pancake-eating contest days earlier at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut.