So relax, get comfy, and enjoy!
"GLORIAOUS" GLORIA FAULLS
Gloria at the check-in and on stage at her Olympia debut
In any large field it's easy to 'get lost' or 'fall through the cracks' during the judging round, but when you're 5'9" and weigh a beautifully proportioned 150 pounds those chances are greatly diminished. And so it was with Gloria Faulls...
Steve Wennerstrom on the IFBB Puerto Rico Pro, June 2015
GLORIA'S PROGRESS...
top: winning her pro card at the 2011 North Americans (left) and at the Toronto Pro in 2012
bottom: (left) Gloria at the New York Pro 2013, and the Greater Gulf States last year
I'd bet that Gloria Faulls was not the most familiar name in the Olympia line-up to most fans. Her rise to the top of the WPD tree has been slow and steady, her Olympia debut representing the culmination of ten years' worth of hard work and constant incremental improvement. She started out in Bodybuilding - "my passion" as she calls it - five or six years before the Physique division was even created, competing in NABBA shows at first, and trained by the much more familiar name of Vilma Caez.
In 2010 she moved over to the NPC, and won both the Muscle Beach show in 2010 and the New Jersey State in 2011 as a Bodybuilder before switching to Physique to earn her pro card at the IFBB North Americans in the same year and making her pro debut at the 2012 Toronto Pro, where she finished a creditable 8th. For the rest of that year and on into 2013 and 2014, she enjoyed an (almost) unbroken series of top 6 finishes without ever placing higher than 4th. 2015, she decided, would be different. This year I will be bringing a new package and top 5 is no longer the goal, she said. It's WIN!
Gloria on stage in San Juan, Puerto Rico - her first win as a pro
Having come close in New York, where she was runner-up to Michelle Cummings, Gloria didn't have long to wait before she had achieved her stated goal. Faulls was polished, finely conditioned, and with muscle groups that were proportionate and well-shaped throughout her entire structure, Steve Wennerstrom reckoned in his review of the show. Put simply, she made no mistakes in her prep.
Gloria v.2015 - a few weeks out from the New York Pro
Through all those hard years of competition, prepping over and over again was paying off, Gloriaously. And having qualified for what would be her first Olympia as early in the season as May, Gloria had time enough to get her prep spot on once more. Nothing was left to chance. She was even having regular massages to correct small - to these untrained eyes imperceptible - imbalances in her posture. Although I can obviously appreciate the masseur's (enviable) view of her beautifully detailed back (below).
Apparently, NOT perfect - just imagine getting PAID to dig your fingers right into that!
So despite her name perhaps not being on too many radars as a possible high finisher, Gloria arrived at the Olympia with a 2015 contest record few could match. And though she said after arriving in Vegas that it was "the thrill of a lifetime to be here with so many beautiful WPD sisters", with so many years experience behind her, Gloria's was never going to be a nervous, "rabbit in the headlights" kind of debut.
GLORIA'S OLYMPIA...
And so it proved. As gorgeous and well-prepared as ever, Gloria hit her poses with great poise, looked totally comfortable on that big stage, confident in herself that she absolutely belonged among the elite of her sport, and showing the audience and the judges why. She was never going to "fall through the cracks" at the Olympia. Even I could see that, but more importantly the judges saw it too, placing her 7th.
Don't ever think for a second that your dreams can't come true, she effusively told her Facebook followers after the Olympia. No matter how crazy people tell you you are, if you work hard enough and want it bad enough you can do anything. And Gloria would know. She's just a year older than Juliana Malacarne, whose career was much less impressive than Gloria's before it all went boom a few years ago. I certainly wouldn't bet against Gloria's career doing something similar in the very near future.
Oh, and in case you are wondering what motivated Gloria to get fit in the first place, it was the bullying she experienced at school in her hometown of Philadelphia. I very much doubt those same bullies would think about taking her on now...
You can follow Gloria on Facebook and Instagram, and if you like your muscle women with a super East coast accent (as opposed to, for example, Autumn Swansen's Southern fried brogue that we swooned to on Sunday), then I totally recommend you watch (and listen to) Gloria's fifteen-minute "A Day in the Life" clip on YouTube.
The same channel brings us to a close today with Gloria a day and a half before she took to the stage in Las Vegas. Dedication in (seriously hard and vascular) action.
Enjoy!
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