Ms International: Did You Know...? [Part 2]

…in its 28-year history, there have been 12 different Ms Internationals.

Over the same period, there have been nine Ms Olympias. Three women have held both titles at the same time, the first to do so being Kim Chizevsky in 1996. The feat was not repeated until Yaxeni Oriquen won both in 2005. You can probably guess that Iris Kyle completes the list, and is the only woman to have won both titles in the same year more than once.



In fact, Iris has been the reigning Ms International and Ms Olympia SIX times! She first did the double in 2004, repeating it every year since with the exception of 2005, when she didn’t compete, 2008 – more about that shortly – and last year, when she didn’t compete due to injury. On each occasion that she hasn’t won the Ms I during this period, Yaxeni has won it instead.




…even Iris gets the blues.

Or to be more precise, the ‘bumps’.



As noted above, Iris’ record at the Ms International since 2004 is pretty much flawless. She either isn’t there or she wins. But in 2008, Iris was very much there, and what happened to Iris at the Ms I that year is right up there with the Paula Bircumshaw saga (see Sunday’s post) as an example of just how bizarre the world of top female bodybuilding can be.



Iris was shocked to find herself not only out of the top 1, but out of the top 6, specifically in 7th place. Some time after the contest she said, I’m still quite puzzled. From the judges standpoint, I have received no feedback leaving me with thousands of unanswered questions to this day. I made a couple of calls but I couldn’t get through to who I would love to speak to.



Only later did one of the judges reveal where Iris had lost her title. In a radio interview, head judge Sandy Ranalli confirmed a rumour that ‘bumps’ were responsible for Iris’ placing. Her shoulders were a little bit, you know, distorted. There were distortions in her glute area, she said. At this level of competition, [there is] not a big difference between athletes, those things come into play. It was the distortion.

Now, take a look at these images from the show. Do you see any ‘distortions’?



I think what the judges were talking about were her muscles, but let’s say that they were right. If they had felt she was so grotesquely ‘distorted’, why didn’t they place her last? If they felt the ‘distortions’ were somehow the result of some kind of foul play, why didn’t they disqualify her? Why, to those judges on that day, was the ultimate sanction that occurred to them to place her 7th? Out of the money. Just.



Ah, the wonder of IFBB female bodybuilding judging truly never ceases to amaze! How many other sports do you know where the rules or criteria for success are not only constantly being rewritten, but are often rewritten during the contest they relate to. It’s almost as if the IFBB are trying to make a farce of female bodybuilding. After all, does this happen in any of the other events at their shows?

I don’t think you need me to answer that.


...heavyweights always win.

In the same way that having different weight classes came and went out of fashion at the Ms Olympia in roughly the same period, there were lightweight and heavyweight classes at the Ms International from 2000 to 2005.



At the Ms O in 2001, Juliette Bergmann, a lightweight, defeated Iris Kyle for the overall title, but at the Ms I, the heavyweights won every time. Brenda Raganot and Dayana Cadeau both lost out twice in the overall posedown; Brenda to Vickie Gates in 2000, and Yaxeni in 2005; Dayana to Vickie in 2001, and to Iris in 2004. In addition, lightweights Valentina Chepiga in 2002 and Cathy Le François the following year both lost out to heavyweight Yaxeni.



I can’t help feeling that the whole thing became a lot less interesting after the end of the different weight classes. Although it’s very uncommon for a lightweight to beat a heavyweight, at least there are two winners, two contests, two posedowns and then an extra posedown at the end to decide the overall title. More variety for the spectator, more opportunity for the women not blessed with the genetic gifts of the likes of Vickie Gates and Iris Kyle to have their moment. Now we are faced with the prospect of absolutely no bodybuilding classes at all, the days of the weight classes seem all the rosier.




…25 years is a long time.



If the Arnold Sports Festival and the Ms International were married, they’d have celebrated their silver anniversary in 2013. When the union began, George Bush was replacing Ronald Reagan as US President, Ayatollah Khomeini had just placed a $3m bounty on Salman Rushdie’s head, and Hungary had just started dismantling its border with Austria, heralding the end of the ‘Iron Curtain’.

Jackie Paisley was the first Ms International crowned in Columbus Ohio.



25 years later, George Bush’s son has been and gone from the White House, Khomeini is dead, though Rushdie lives, and Hungary, along with most of the other countries once behind the ‘Iron Curtain’, is a member of the European Union along with its former ‘capitalist enemies’.

Iris Kyle won what was quite possibly the last Ms International to be held at the Arnold Sports Festival, though we hope that she will not be the last Ms International of all.



Maybe it is time for a change, perhaps a big change in the way professional female bodybuilding is run. But more of that later in the week.



Sign the petition and make your voice heard.

And enjoy this and other Ms International action from recent years on jlelmariachi’s youtube channel