The Stars of the Show
For both the Omaha show, and the Toronto Pro the week before it, I found myself, for the first time, following the show more via the social media of the women themselves than through the reporting of established bodybuilding resource sites. For Toronto, a bigger show at which the pro female bodybuilding is one of many contests, this was a choice made partly out of the desire to get the results and images etc. as fast as possible - the major sites tend to be a little tardy in putting up images and results from the FBB show. It's just not a priority for them among all the male and bikini-type classes. But such was the pleasure I took in the self-reportage from Toronto of the likes of Tonia Moore (via her Instagram) that when it came to Omaha, I chose to get my news from the women, rather than trusting the big sites to give me news of them.
Tonia Moore and Jill Rudison
The Best Comedy Double Act in Female Muscle?
What the women can give you that the major sites can't is a no-holds-barred account of their final preparations, unique backstage candids from the show, and, once the show is over, all the pigging-out they do! Granted, the images are, quite obviously, not the kind of high quality stuff that the contest photographer is capable of producing. If you want that kind of detail - photographic detail - then stay with the big sites. But if it's a different kind of detail you crave - the minutiae of a female bodybuilder's final preparations, for example, or who travels/rooms with who, or who does whose make-up and so on - then who better to be your guide than the women themselves?
Judy Gaillard
Checking in (left, via NPC News Online) and waiting for showtime (via her Facebook)
That's not to say that all of the images the women post of themselves and their fellow "Sisters of Iron" are shaky low-quality ones. Far from it. After all, if you are a female bodybuilder with the chance to have your picture taken with nine-times Ms Olympia Iris Kyle, the chances are you are going to want to make it a good 'un. And they all, without exception, seem to have grabbed the opportunity. Often more than once!
Alana Shipp, Anne Freitas, Tonia Moore and Margie Martin get starstruck
Iris was there as a guest star for the show (along with Mr Olympia Phil Heath) and was also, apparently, acting as Rene Marven's coach. However, she was, of course, generously handing out pearls of wisdom to all and sundry. Anne Freitas posted the above photo of herself and the woman she calls "The Queen" on her Instagram with a big thank you message to Iris. I will not forget your advice, she wrote.
Rene Marven, Alana Shipp and Margie Martin
Beauty, bling and smiles
Easy for Iris to show such generosity towards Anne when she's not competing against her, you might think, but this kind of camaraderie seemed to extend throughout the entire field, with all the competitors looking to be so at ease with each other. Laying back and waiting for the finals, reads the description of the above pic on Margie's Instagram, almost as if she, Rene and Alana were teammates, not rivals.
And then there was the almighty, twelve-woman posedown, the images of which reminded us of our posts from back in April, where, with the help of Tanya Bunsell's Strong and Hard Women, we identified both the physical AND spiritual highs experienced by the female bodybuilder at a contest.
We see, in the all-inclusive posedown, the women experiencing the physical and spiritual high both individually and as one, in a kind of collective peaking - although perhaps some of them are peaking just that tiny little bit more than others - for example, Rene Marven seems to be really really enjoying herself!!!
And after all that it's time to stuff your face with all the stuff you have been craving throughout your crazy contest diet. To get your glam on, to have a drink and celebrate your achievement. Today, the smile of the ever-beautiful and newly-married Helle (now Trevino, formerly Nielsen) seems to be saying, was a good day.
Enjoy!
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