Iris Kyle: Her Olympian Career 1994-2014

This year's Ms Olympia, marked the end of an era. And the woman who dominated the era did so like no other bodybuilder, female or male, dominated any other. She is, of course, Iris Kyle. Iris Kyle, SEVEN times Ms International. Iris Kyle, Ms Olympia for NINE consecutive years. Iris Kyle, SEVEN times Ms Olympia AND Ms International in the same year. Iris Kyle, TEN times Ms Olympia.

If the title of today's post reminds you a little of the title of an obituary (and the original title was "Iris Kyle 1994-2014", exactly like an obituary), then perhaps that's no bad thing. It's intended to be a celebration of Iris' unprecedented achievements, but it's also intended to leave you feeling a little sad that you won't ever see Iris compete again, and that perhaps a little mourning for the end of her era is due.


The Amateur 1994-1998


Iris at the 1998 NPC USAs

Iris' career began in 1994 at the NPC Long Beach Muscle Classic. She won, obviously.

She had been an All-American college basketball player, and, according to her Wikipedia entry, was inspired to take up weight training after moving to California and being surrounded by fit, healthy-looking people. She joined a gym and was soon spotted by a local promoter who suggested she enter the Long Beach contest.

Her inspiration? Future rival Lenda Murray. I remember the first time I saw a photograph of Lenda Murray in a magazine, she recalled many years later. I was in complete awe. I cut out that picture and placed it on my refrigerator and, from that point on, my goal was to develop a physique like hers.

In 1996 she won the NPC Orange County and California titles and moved up to national level, finishing 2nd at the NPC USAs the same year. In 1997 she was 3rd in the Heavyweight class at the USAs and 4th at the NPC Nationals. Then, in 1998 she earned her pro card, winning both class and Overall titles at the USAs. She was 23 years old.

But that is not the whole story, as this contest report from the 1998 USAs reveals...

When the heavies were announced, the boos started coming. They started with the fourth place announcement of Ann-Marie Crooks and continued when [Debi] Laszewski was announced at 3rd. Overall, many in the crowd favored Laszewski. With her solid physique that looked even better in the evening, it was a tough call. Not to mention the fact that Laszewski emanates an incredible charisma on stage, and was perhaps one of the most beautiful and sensual women in the competition. For the Overall, the three weight class winners came out, and I thought Yaz [Boyum, Middleweight winner] had the best overall package of the top three. Although the middleweight was in the best condition, her structure was not the best. When the short posedown was finished, the judges announced the overall winner and next pro was Iris Kyle to the surprise of many, myself included.
Gene X Hwang, geneX Magazine

A controversial Iris Kyle victory, then. Not the last...


The Hard-Luck Bridesmaid 1999-2004


Iris at the 2000 Ms Olympia

My most memorable moment in watching Iris compete all these years had nothing to do with any of the titles she won, but one she didn't, recalls Steve Wennerstrom. In 1999 Iris made her pro debut at the Ms International – a lofty event to get her pro feet wet indeed. Things didn't go as she'd planned... to say the least. I happened to be standing at the foot of the steps as the competitors came off stage at the evening show. Iris was not in the top five, nor the top ten. She had finished 15th. As she passed by me, with one of the most searing looks I have ever encountered in a female bodybuilder she whispered, "THAT, will never happen again."

Iris was as good her (somewhat pissed off) word. It didn't happen again. Ever.

With the exception of a disqualification from the Ms International in 2000 and her somewhat bizarre 7th place finish at the 2008 Ms International, Iris never finished outside of the top 5 in any event she competed in, and by my reckoning, the 2014 Olympia was her 29th event since that 15th place at the Ms International in 1999.

Whatever had been wrong at that first pro outing she was soon putting right.

Iris took the runners-up spot (behind Laura Binetti) at the 1999 IFBB Pro World Championships, and that meant she qualified for her first Ms Olympia.



Iris finished 4th in the last open Ms Olympia (ie. no weight classes) for five years.

A year later, at the Ms International, Iris, along with Tazzie Colomb, was disqualified for using a diuretic (like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500...), and at the Ms Olympia, she finished 5th in the Heavyweight class. The two winners that year, Valentina Chepiga and Andrulla Blanchette - one for each weight class - did, it was said at the time, herald a "new era in female bodybuilding". The heirs apparent to the retired Kim Chizevsky, the big heavyweights Lesa Lewis and Vickie Gates, had lost out to the "more feminine" Chepiga - Gates had actually stormed off the stage in outrage when she had been announced as runner-up.

However, we can see now that so-called new era was simply a period of transition. And confusion. At the same time Vickie Gates was failing to win over Olympia judges, she was taking home two Ms International titles (2000, 2001). Valentina and Andrulla careers fizzled out after their 2000 Ms O wins. And meanwhile, Iris and Yaxeni Oriquen were gaining positive reviews for their "standout routines"...


Iris, Heavyweight champion, 2001 Ms Olympia

In 2001, Iris neither won the Ms International, nor the Ms Olympia (although she was the Heavyweight winner), but the general opinion was that she should have won both.

Vickie Gates at her absolute best is indeed a worthy opponent for Iris Kyle, Bill Dobbins wrote in his 2001 Ms Olympia review. But Vickie wasn't at her absolute best and hasn't been for a couple of years. What we nearly had is one more instance (last year's Ms Olympia, the 2001 Ms International) where Iris received unfair treatment from the judges. Thankfully, that didn't happen in judging the Heavyweight class.

But, unlike 2000, in 2001 there was a posedown for the Overall Ms Olympia title. Iris was up against the Lightweight winner Juliette Bergmann. She lost. The one and only time a Heavyweight has come second in an Overall posedown at the Ms Olympia.

It was pretty much accepted that Juliette deserved the Lightweight victory, but there was a far more mixed reaction to her victory in the Overall, Dobbins commented. Gene X Hwang's take on the result was rather more straightforward. The injustice was how the judges awarded the Overall and Ms Olympia title to Bergmann, while it seemed to many that Kyle was clearly the superior bodybuilder.

So, here we are again. And not for the last time. Controversy...

And in the following two Ms Olympias (surprise surprise) there was more...



Iris at the 2002 Ms Olympia

2002, and for the very first time Iris competes against Lenda Murray. Murray wins the Heavyweight class over Iris, a decision that is not unanimously applauded. If Murray and Kyle were both unknowns, one commentator suggested, it may have been Kyle taking the title. In the end though Kyle was once again a hard-luck bridesmaid. Well, fancy that! Iris Kyle the "hard-luck bridesmaid"!


Lenda v Iris II, 2003 Ms Olympia

On we go to 2003. Iris doesn't compete in any other show that year, focusing all her energy on the Ms Olympia. It's Kyle v Murray Part II. Once again, Iris has to be content with the runners-up spot in the Heavyweight class, and this time, perhaps, it's generally agreed that Lenda Murray was a worthy winner.

Not by Iris though. Nearly nine years later and she is STILL pissed off about it, ranking it as one of the biggest disappointments of her career in an interview with RxMuscle.

I clearly know and others knew I beat her by a landslide. Lenda has great delts, maybe the best in the business... A wonderful shape to her physique nice round bellies to her muscles BUT she didn't have all the HARMONY, the lines, not to mention the definition I displayed that year. Lenda's quadricep vanished where? I don't know...



Iris at the 2003 Ms Olympia

Sour grapes? Perhaps. But also perhaps the key to understanding why Iris went on to become the Iris we know (and love) today. Was she prepared to settle? To hold up her hands before the woman she had once cut out of a magazine and stuck to the fridge for inspiration and say, "You were the better woman"? HELL NO!!! Just as she had been when she had come off stage after her first pro show, Iris was ANGRY. This first loser stuff was clearly sticking in her craw. Gene X Hwang, in his review of the show, wrote that Kyle pushed Murray in each individual bodypart, but Murray's package was once again crowned the best in women's bodybuilding, and that made it eight for her.

Murray is now the greatest bodybuilding champion of all time, and considering that, Kyle should not feel too bad about her placing.

Now, can't you imagine Iris reading that and a fire inside her igniting?

"The greatest bodybuilding champion of all time? You'll see..."


Lenda v Iris III, Ms Olympia 2004

By the end of 2004, Iris was no longer the "hard-luck bridesmaid". She had won her first ever professional title at the Ms International, and at the Olympia, it was third time lucky against her former idol (or maybe "third time deserved" would be Iris' take on it). Iris beat Lenda to the Heavyweight title, and went on to win the first of her ten Ms O titles in the posedown with Lightweight winner Dayana Cadeau.


Iris Kyle, Ms Olympia 2004

In 11 Olympia appearances, Lenda Murray had only been beaten twice before - by Kim Chizevsky on both occasions - and had "retired" after the second of those defeats. Iris thus became the second woman to beat her at the Olympia, and this time Lenda wasn't hanging around for more punishment. She retired, as "the greatest bodybuilding champion of all time" we should remember, after the 2004 show.


Iris v Yaxeni 2002-2005


The top 5, Ms Olympia 2005, note: Iris NOT the winner!

While Iris had been battling Lenda at the Olympia in 2002 and 2003, a new rival for the very top prizes in the sport had emerged: Venezuela's Yaxeni Oriquen.

Yaxeni had already beaten Iris at the 2002 Ms International, and she had defended her title the following year while Iris had saved herself for the Olympia. Although Iris had beaten Yaxeni to both the Ms International and Olympia titles in 2004, Yaxeni had reclaimed the Ms International in 2005, again without having to beat Iris.

Iris returned to Las Vegas to defend her Ms Olympia title in 2005, a fact that did not seem to be to everyone's liking. In a preview to the contest, Bill Dobbins noted that many in the IFBB and at AMI/Weider, which promotes the Olympia weekend, are unhappy with Iris Kyle having won in 2004. The feeling seems to be that Iris is not somebody who can be used to promote the sport to a mass audience.

Perhaps as a result of this negativity towards Iris, the Ms Olympia was "demoted", becoming part of the Expo the day after the Fitness and Figure women had had their finals. There were no weight classes for the first time since 1999, and, most bizarrely of all, the 2005 season had seen the IFBB introduce what became known as "the 20% rule". This stated that "female athletes in Bodybuilding, Fitness and Figure decrease the amount of muscularity by a factor of 20%", but although it became known as a "rule", it was actually to apply only "to those female athletes whose physiques require the decrease". Not that the IFBB were saying who those female athletes were!!!

If the measure of a competition's drama is in direct proportion to the uncertainty of its outcome, the 2005 Ms Olympia must have been one of the most exciting contests ever, because not only were there two competitors who had proven their ability to win at this level, there was also uncertainty about how the women would be judged. Nobody knew what was going to happen - least of all the athletes themselves!

In the end, there was no "enforcement" of the 20% rule, nor did the judges give the title to any of the "more marketable" outsiders in a move reminiscent of the 1992 Ms International (see FMS passim). Bill Dobbins notes in his contest report that despite the pre-show uncertainty, the event was run with "no muss, no fuss, no bother".

It was generally agreed that the right woman, Yaxeni, had won. Some commentators expressed sympathy for Dayana Cadeau, perennial Lightweight champion, who had finished 3rd, beating all but two of the "Heavyweights" in the process, but all in all, this Ms Olympia result seems to have been one of the least controversial ever.



Iris, leading by example at the Ms Olympia 2005

But that doesn't mean that Iris was happy. We were instructed to reduce 20%, she said in 2012. I normally compete at 160-162[lbs] but that year, being the ambassador of the sport, I had to lead by example, which I did. I competed at 155, same conditioning, shape etc. It looked as if Yaxeni had done the opposite of what the current ruling stated, she's displaying nothing but BIG, and she was being rewarded! Yaxeni was more surprised than I hearing her name announced. To make matters worse, the person doing the announcing was Lenda Murray! She was probably soaking up every second of me losing as payback, according to Iris.

Despite Iris' take on the result, and most of the retrospective reporting of the event would have you believe that the 20% rule somehow "allowed" Yaxeni to win, I haven't managed to find a single contemporary report - ie. a report written at the time by someone who was actually there - which says the wrong woman won.

Nevertheless, it's a pivotal moment. Just like after her 15th place at her first Ms International, and again after losing twice to Lenda Murray at the Ms Olympia, we can see how Iris was spurred on by a setback. Immediately after the 2005 Ms Olympia, Yaxeni had four major titles (as well as a few less major wins) to Iris' two. In the following nine years, Yaxeni Oriquen would win two more Ms International titles; but Iris Kyle would become the greatest bodybuilding champion of all time.


The Champion 2006-2014


Iris, Ms Olympia 2007

I chose this clip not for its quality, but its commentary.

The clip begins with her introduction, and as Iris comes on stage, the obviously awestruck commentators breathlessly search for adequate vocabulary...

And what else do we need to say about...

WOW!

Defending champ Iris Kyle...

The Kyle style of muscle is back and she is back... STRONG!

Now there's a genetic freak that's hard to... hard to beat!

I think...

Iris looks PHENOMENAL.

If we wanna talk about the X-factor she is probably as close as we get to it.

You've got that right...

And that's just the first 45 seconds or so!

On and on they go, superlative after superlative, exactly the kind of language we will find coming up again and again in the selections from the Olympia reports and reviews below, but for me the key phrase they use is that Iris is "hard to beat".

For me, this was the key ingredient of her success.

At any given Olympia, there may have been one (never more than one) other competitor who perhaps, PERHAPS, had one body part that matched or even perhaps bettered Iris. There may have been a competitor who had slighty, SLIGHTLY better conditioning. But she was never, NEVER outdone in overall terms.

I was always told when going after the champ you have to completely knock the champ "OUT", she said in 2012. Anything close should not cause you to win.

It's the in-built advantage bodybuilding champions have over their challengers when they return to defend their title. And it explains, it seems to me, why most Olympia winners (female and male) go on to win the title in consecutive years. As the above quote demonstrates, once Iris had established herself as the champion in 2006, she understood full well that the following year it would be her defending champion physique that other competitors would be judged against, and they would have to be better, SIGNIFICANTLY better than her, in order to steal her crown.

It's one thing to know this, though, and quite another thing to put it into practice.

Were there any harder working women in female bodybuilding during her period of total domination? Let's say for the sake of argument there were. Well, none of them worked hard enough to defeat her, and Iris certainly worked so hard that she became "defeat-proof", consistently being an outstanding defending champion.



Iris, Ms Olympia 2006

Not an inch on her body was underdeveloped, and her legs were truly spectacular. Her magnificently peaked biceps would also have to be the best in the business. In the end, her physique was clearly ahead of the competition and she deserved her win. Iris presented the perfect combination of mass, cuts and shape.
David Robson, Bodybuilding.com



Iris, Ms Olympia 2007

In the early stages of the prejudging rounds it looked as though Kyle just might have left the door open for Cadeau to storm through, with Kyle slightly off her usual chiseled level of condition (and only slightly)... With the evening event bringing the competitors to the much larger Orleans Arena stage, and notably different lighting, Kyle suddenly took on the look of a winner. Her detail was complete, and her routine left no guesswork to the completeness of her physique.
Muscular Development



Iris, Ms Olympia 2008

Iris Kyle dominated this competition like Ronnie Coleman used to on the men's side. She has incredible structure combined with unbelievable conditioning. Her skin is paper-thin and her muscles seem to explode when she poses, little feathery lines pop out everywhere. Iris was ripped from head to toe and back to front. She deserved the Ms. Olympia title and should be able to hold onto it as long as she would like to.
Myron Mielke, Bodybuilding.com



Iris, Ms Olympia 2009

She's unbeatable. I knew it before I got to Vegas, I thought it when I saw her at prejudging, and I'll still be thinking it on the plane ride home. Pick a body part, and Iris will go head-to-head with any other competitor on stage, and come out on top. No two ways about it. This woman works HARD, and it pays off. She doesn't rely on past wins or laurels to help carry her through from show to show. No, she REproves herself each time; showing the audience and the judges why she deserved the titles she already has, and why she deserves to have more come to her.
Jaime Filer, Bodybuilding.com



Iris, Ms Olympia 2010

Iris Kyle continued her dominance. And she did it with an overwhelming arsenal, highlighted by superb shape, full muscle bellies, intricate details and conditioning that none of the other competitors could touch.
Flex Online



Iris, Ms Olympia 2011

Iris Kyle swept the competition at tonight's Olympia finals, leaving the others in her dust. Yaxeni Oriquen-Garcia put up a fight, but when it comes down to width and quad separation, there is no beating Iris. As long as Iris is competing it's going to be a tough road for any competitor looking to take that trophy home with them. She is the champion, now, and, perhaps, until she decides to hang up her trunks.
Erin Chancer-Smith, Bodybuilding.com



Iris, Ms Olympia 2012

Iris Kyle didn’t skip a beat in her quest for her record-tying eighth Ms Olympia. She’s the clear winner. An unbeatable combination of conditioning and fullness.
Tracey Greenwood, NPC News Online

She is probably the best bodybuilder – male or female - ever. Nobody has come in each and every show like she has, with the conditioning that she has. I will say she wasn’t as tight as she ‘s been at other shows, but she has beautiful lines, and she had enough detail in the hamstrings and glutes and back.
IFBB Women's Head Judge



Iris, Ms Olympia 2013

With her win tonight, Iris Kyle becomes the first bodybuilder, man or woman, to earn nine Olympia titles. She couldn't be more deserving of this huge honor. She's spent the last 13 years at the top of the women's bodybuilding field. It is to Iris Kyle that many of today's up-and-coming female bodybuilders owe their inspiration.
Cassie Smith, Bodybuilding.com

By about 2011, as I think you can see from the year-on-year images above, Iris had reached a level where she simply couldn't get any better, but by then, as the reports from that year onwards suggest, the Ms Olympia was less of a contest, and more of an annual coronation for the woman who became - and will, in all probability remain - the greatest bodybuilding champion of all time.



Iris, Ms Olympia 2014

And if you think this is all the Iris you could possibly handle, you might want to stay away from FMS for the next week, because we haven't finished with her quite yet!

Enjoy!