Tampa: Reckoning

So, yesterday's post - which you would have read after the event - was written last Friday - before any of the results were in, after I'd seen prejudging pics from the Figure and Physique divisions, but before any of the Female Bodybuilders had got on stage.

In the post I made a few predictions, or perhaps observations would be a better word. The main three were: 1. Autumn Swansen looked amazing; 2. Angela Salvagno - sensational during prep - sadly appeared not to have made the show; and 3. FBBing was probably going to amount to a showdown between Alina Popa and Lisa Cross.

Well, now we know... How did I do?

1. AUTUMN SWANSEN LOOKED AMAZING



I was hardly going out on a limb, but - in a line-up of 35, remember - immediately noticing just how back-to-her-best Autumn was does give me a little bit of hope that I do talk sense from time to time. And - surprise surprise - the judges agreed with me!




It's not all about the placing, she wrote after disappointments earlier in the season in San Jose and Chicago. It's about the progress. Well, it all came together for her in Tampa, and Autumn got to go home with some money and a very big sword indeed.



Her routines are always a pleasure. If only there was video...



No wardrobe malfunction this time!

2. NO ANGELA



My assumption seemed reasonable at the time. Despite looking ridiculously ready about a week and a half before the show, Angie has had her health problems over the past few years, it didn't seem beyond the bounds of possibility that she'd be struck down as she attempted to peak. On top of that, there wasn't a single pic of Angie at the athletes' meeting or the check-in. She's hardly known for being camera shy, and there was also nothing from Tampa on her social media. So, I put two and two together...



BOOM!




How wrong I was! Here she was, back on stage for the first time since 2015, and back as a Bodybuilder for the first time since the same Tampa Pro seven long years ago. Honestly, I don't think I've ever been so happy to be wrong. Angie, however, had mixed emotions. Everything was great except my placing, she said (on her updated after Friday Instagram). I still have carb issues, which killed my conditioning. She's not going to make us wait seven years again though. I’m back and I will not give up. I will get into the condition and have the size I need to compete at the top, she promised. I'm Angela Fucking Salvagno and I will be back next year!!!



Believe!

3. POPA-CROSS SHOWDOWN



Not a one-two, but a one-four. If I'd predicted one or the other would win there'd be a big green tick above. Instead, I confidently imagined they would take first and second. So, with Pauline Nelson getting the runner's-up prize and (more surprisingly given her previous placings this year) LaDawn McDay claiming 3rd, it's a big red cross.




Alina was, understandably, over the moon. For all her achievements, for all her fame and for all her many many fans, the premier Female Bodybuilder of the last decade had never won a pro title before last weekend. This is a special night for me, she wrote, holding her sword aloft (and incidentally, doesn't it look a lot smaller when she holds it than when Autumn does?) It's always a wonderful feeling to be a champion.



Quite honestly, I'm surprised she can remember the feeling. It's been, in fact, ten years since at the World Amateur Championships Alina was actually judged the winner of a contest rather than been declared the should-have-been winner by us adoring fans.




A new experience for Alina, then, and a new experience for us as well - enhanced Alina on stage. The tut-tutters had already aired their views on the forums long before this show - "She was much better without implants," and so on. And there's also been doubt expressed in the wake of her victory that she'll be able to compete with Helle and Margie at the Rising Phoenix. Alina, it seems, has come back to a backlash!



I'd advise those making predictions about the Rising Phoenix to proceed with caution! And anyway, Alina's back poses have hardly "lost" any shock and awe, have they?

So, to answer the question posed at the beginning of today's post, how did I do? Well, I got 1/3, which is even worse, according to the Meat Loaf scale, than "not bad".

I've got to cheer myself up somehow, and trawling through the many many images of the show seems like a good way to do that... More from Tampa on FMS tomorrow.

Tampa: Tease

I'm writing this last Friday, and the female muscle meat feast that is the Tampa Pro is already under way. As well as a host of other images from in and around the show, photos from the Figure and Physique prejudging are already up on NPC News Online. The line-ups in those divisions are truly immense, 35 Physique Dreams and a mind-boggling 49 Figure Phenoms. We're all going to be busy over the next few days!



I was pleased to notice a good few Figure competitors insisting on putting cheeky and/or downright brazen flexing into their presentations. Julie Mayer, who we enjoyed recently at the LA Pro, went for the cheeky tricep flex while transitioning between front and side-on poses - known in my house as "The Gillon", after Cyd, who was the first competitor I ever noticed doing this. Amber Eutsey, meanwhile, just went ahead and flexed her bicep. Boom! If it was up to me, that would automatically make her the champion. Sadly, or thankfully depending on your viewpoint, it isn't.



In the Physique division, Autumn Swansen didn't just look good after her make-up had been applied by Jamie Pinder - now there's a hotel room this boy would have liked to have been on the inside of. She looked pretty amazing on stage as well.



How the judges decide among so many women is beyond me. My brain, and possibly other parts of my body too, would simply explode under such a female muscle barrage. Would it, I wonder, be helpful to have some sort of pre-prejudging at the check-in? It might encourage fewer baggy, muscle-hiding tops and more beautiful figure-revealing dresses at least. Kendyl Seawright and Maggie Watson would have claimed an early advantage on Swell's (sticky) Figure scorecard if so.



But for all the Figure and Physique fun, Tampa has, in recent years, established itself as the greatest FBB show on earth outside of the Rising Phoenix. I'm not quite sure it's going to have the sort of line-up we've delighted in before - no Sheila Bleck, no Virginia Sanchez, for example. And apparently no Angie Salvagno either.



This was Angie, looking exciting and feeling excited a week and a half ago. Can’t wait to finally compete again after 7 years!!!! she told her IG following. Since then, however, not a peep from the normally hyper-active Angie, and as there's not a single pic of her at the athlete's meeting or check-in or anywhere else I can find, I'm assuming something has happened to stop her being at the show and I'm hoping that she's all OK.



Alina's there though - competing, not just Wings of Strength cheerleading. No doubt who Annie'll be rooting for. It's been a while since she's got her hands on Alina!



And surely the contest will be between the great uncrowned and Britain's finest (and runner-up in 2016 and 2017) Lisa Cross - a woman who never turns up to the check-in in anything less than a beautiful tight dress. It's a measure of Lisa's progress over the last few years and how far Alina's shooting star has fallen since she had her injury worries that I am talking about them as rivals for the same title, and I say that fully aware that by the time you read this it will be apparent if I have got it badly wrong!



So I cunningly distract you from the previous paragraph with the help of Irene Andersen enjoying the Florida sunshine. Such incredible muscle mass - I bet the water level fell quite considerably when Irene hauled herself out of there.

Tampa. It'll already have happened by the time you read this, but as I write it's only just begun. To say I am a little bit excited would be something of an understatement - though even I am not quite as excited as Ashley Hromyak seems to be...



Enjoy!

10 Years at the Arnold Classic: 2016

ORDEM E PROGRESSO



The rise and rise of Brazilian female muscle was clear for all to see at the Arnold Amateur in 2016. Brazilian women took home three of the four Overall titles, and in some classes - like the short Physique class for example, totally dominated.



Fernanda Kunze (above) had the toughest job of all. She first beat future Bikini star Anita Herbert (and 32 other women) to win her class, then outpointed the five other class winners to take the Overall - 1st out of 165(!) women (by my reckoning).



In Figure, Michele Da Silva Pinto (above) led a class Brazilian 1-2 ahead of Wagna Vargas (top left) before taking home that division's Overall title for Brazil as well.



And in Physique, two of the three classes were won by Brazilians. Marjorie Beck (top right) improved on her 5th place the year before by winning the Medium class, and Fernanda Gutilla (above) won the Short class and then went on to win Overall too.



As mentioned above, the pleasingly thick Gutilla led a Short Physique 1-2-3 of Brazilians, completed by Evelaine Rocha (2nd), and Priscila Cavilha (3rd).



Janaina Ferreira (above), 11th out of 12 in the Figure division, was Brazil's only representative in the pro show, however. This state of affairs would change rapidly.

THE FORTY-NINE




Just two years' old was the Physique International. An invitational event for a select eleven the previous year, in 2016 it was thrown open and (what must be) a world record 49 women squeezed onto the stage. Here was the "international" contest that its name promised. And here was Physique, in all its varied and randomly-judged glory!



There was a former Ms Olympia, 16 years on, and there were former Bodybuilders of a more recent vintage - Klaudia Larson, Alicia Alfaro, Geraldine Morgan, and Susan Smith. And from the other side, there was Mindi O'Brien, her "breathtaking" routine harking back to her days as a Fitness competitor. Her placing - a controversial(?) 3rd - better than she'd ever achieved before at the Arnold Classic.



With Dana Linn gone, and Juliana focusing solely on the Olympia, I recall that at the time there was only going to be one winner as far as I was concerned - Dani. Her career trajectory to date seemed to be leading inevitably to a win at the Arnolds, but it wasn't to be. Instead, Dani was runner-up - and far from disappointed to be that - while the judges gave the title to Autumn Swansen, who had competed (with some success) in both the Figure and Fitness divisions at the Arnold Amateur some years previously.



The following year, you may remember, Autumn had something of a wardrobe malfunction while doing her routine at the Arnolds, and she failed to defend her title. But this was, without question though, her day - the high point of her career so far.



One day, I shall have to do a post with all 49 of them for posterity.




What a feast! And most importantly, they all look like they had an absolute ball.



Best Physique International ever? It will take some beating.

BRITISH INTEREST?



A bit of a down year for the Brits, but while we are still thinking about the 49, it should be noted that two of them were representing the UK. Geraldine Morgan was (and still is) perhaps only "technically" British, but I'm not complaining. Both she and Melanie Horton (right) were among the great unplaced at the Physique International. And I am not, by the way, deliberately showing Melanie from the rear. I too would like to know more, but it's my only find of her, I'm sorry to say!



Emma Paveley was 3rd in an Open Fitness class.



And once again, there was a modicum of British Bikini success. (Left to right) Tatiana Ambrosin was 9th in her Masters Bikini class but unplaced in her regular class. Leggy Kym Birchall fared a little better (up to 170cm, 9th), but the best of the Bikini day for Britain was Krishna Kataria, who was 4th on the up to 155cm (that's tiny!) class.