2016 Review: August

Champions

August began with seven champions in seven days.



To the delight of her many fans and many of her FBB peers, the popular Anne Sheehan won Heavyweight and Overall titles in two of the age categories at the NPC Masters Nationals, and finally achieved her dream of professional status at the age of 43. And meanwhile, "the renaissance" of 36-year-old Isabelle Turell continued, and having been runner-up in Puerto Rico, she won her first pro title in Omaha.



Mindi O'Brien triumphed at the Vancouver Pro - the third time she has won a pro show in the last three years, and just about a year after giving birth to her fourth child, Northern Ireland's Emma Gormley became the NABBA Britain champion.



The gorgeous FMS heartthrob Katie M. Lee won her class and pro card at the NPC Jr Nationals after, she revealed, a hardcore 20 weeks of contest prep. And in her first Physique show, former Figure competitor Jessica Martin - not that Jessica Martin - won both her class and the Overall title at the NPC USAs.



And at "The Games", Iceland's Crossfit Queen Katrín Tanja Davíðsdóttir defended her "Fittest on Earth" title. She received a winner's cheque for a cool $275,000 plus about $13,000 in performance bonuses, and her prize also, rather controversially, included a handgun donated by one of the Games' sponsors. I kid you not. And apparently they are going to allow her back into Iceland with it, FMS reported.

Summer Break @NPC USAs



While we headed off for sunnier shores for the second time this year, FMS kept you busy with some of the women we had dug at the 2016 NPC USAs, including, once again, Theresa Ivancik, for the fourth time at a national level show in the bridesmaid position. She was close, but once again the cigar went elsewhere. It kind of went something like this... "SO," he thought angrily, "who exactly is this O'Veal woman whose body the judges deemed to be better than my Theresa's?"



Holy s**t she's INCREDIBLE!!! And trained by Margie Martin.

Jessica McKenzie, we felt, had got a raw deal from the judges in her Light-heavyweight Bodybuilding class, but it was very much the right result in the Physique class won by Stephanie - Being on stage makes me feel so ALIVE!!!!!! - Flesher.



Class A winner Arlin Mossholder, Kathy Garza (4th, class C), Tia-Marie Hamilton (4th, class A), and the marvellously named Christina Buffington, a Crossfit coach (Class A, 3rd), were just four of many Physique competitors who FMS enjoyed.




But there was also some very sad news. Joanna Wilson had been due to compete at the USAs, but sadly the former Figure and Bodybuilding competitor passed away before the show. She left behind a husband and two children, and some of the reactions to her death did not do much credit to the wider bodybuilding community.



Tributes and condolences to Joanna's family and friends have been paid across the female muscle lovin' fan forums, with genuine shock and sadness at this tragic news and genuine anger at how others have made so many assumptions. She will clearly be missed by all of those she knew and many, including myself, who she did not.

Picture Perfect

FMS went "a bit PumpItUp" for a week with one "perfect picture" per day mid-month.



The week was book-ended by Natasha Aughey's er, memorable shorts, and Margie Martin turning the anticipation for RP2016 up to 11 with a current situation Instagram post she had taken while supporting Brittney O'Veal at the USAs.



"Prime championship beef"

Some of the other pics from that week will no doubt make their way into our "Images of of the Year" post that traditionally comes around Christmas/New Year. Imagine the quality when Natasha's shorts and Margie's pumped, veiny beef don't make the cut!

During the rest of August, we travelled to some exotic places, finding female muscle in abundance in the Indian media and Deepika Chowdhury, an Indian IFBB Figure pro, in the US. We also found sisters Nuha and Latifa Almarri encountering surprisingly (to us) little resistance to their dreams of Crossfit glory in the UAE.



There were bad girls in Britain, and a good female muscle cop in Sweden, and Marcie Simmons launched her new "telling it like it is" series on her YouTube channel.

And there was Heidi Krochter.



And we dug the IFBB Tampa Pro.

We dug the Physique division. Diana Schnaidt switching up from Figure, finally "flexing her muscles in anger" on stage. We dug the World's Sexiest Firefighter, the stunning Erica Blockman, and we dug the Physique champ, "Gloriaous" Gloria Faulls, "every inch of her statuesque frame honed to perfection".



And we very much dug the Bodybuilding class.




We enjoyed, most of all, the quality and quantity of MUSCLE. The fact that there was (in this year of more IFBB pro FBB contests, but fewer women competing at each show) 13 big and beautiful competitors. The fact that this was a proper contest, with four potential winners in Selma Labat, Rita Bello, Lisa Cross, and Sheila Bleck. And we even enjoyed the controversy over the result, which gave the win to Sheila.




I didn't know where to look during that amazing posedown, commented one reader.

I still don't know where to look!



But in a month where there were a number of outstanding clips going up on YouTube - the above most definitely included - one stood head and shoulders (and biceps and pecs and glutes and OMG those ABZZZZ!) above the others. Oana in a stunning posing! is the not 100% grammatically accurate but not misleading title.



Our appetites duly whetted by the Tampa Pro, we headed, salivating, into September, the month when the Phoenix would rise once more. Could Margie do it again? Would it be Helle's year? Or would Alina Popa take the crown that many thought she should have taken in 2013 and 2014 at the last two Ms Olympias? Oh the suspense!

2016 Review: July

There was yet more on stage action at the start of July.



Bonny Priest became the latest face (and body) from the female muscle past to turn up in the female muscle present, 4th behind Rosanna Harte at the Dallas Europa, and at the NABBA Worlds (where they still have a Female Bodybuilding class, they just call it "Physique"), new Brazilian sensation Flores Neide Souza Campos added to her growing legend. And all in a thongtastic NABBA-style posing suit! Ai-karamba!

But there was more sombre news of FMS fave Marthe Sundby who, we reported, was facing another fight with cancer. One day you feel strong and healthy, next day the cancer is back, wrote Marthe. I won last time in 2007, I will beat this illness again. HAVE FAITH AND BELIEVE. At the time of writing, she's still fighting. Keep the faith.



Summer Break I

FMS closed up the office for a week in the sunshine, but we left you with seven posts, and seven women, to enjoy while we were away hoping the South of France beach where we were sunning ourselves would be female muscle central. (Ce n'était pas).

There was Greek Physique champ Tereza Pantela.



I'm a sucker for those sultry Mediterranean ladies even when they haven't got big bulging muscles, so it's hardly surprisng Tereza sends me into a full swoonspin...

There was NPC Figure competitor Liz Montalbano's ultra-ripped body and, as she put it herself, "insane tan" backstage at the NPC Garden State Championships.



I absolutely love it! said Liz. We found it hard to look away.



We also checked in with Figure pro fave Tina Nguyen - yes, we discovered, she is still making us go NG!!! - and Best of British Lisa Cross, who was slowly but surely turning herself inside out as she prepared to take the stage at the Tampa Pro.

And there were three Brazilians!



Two very different rears - Gracyanne's, all-consuming, ever-expanding - and that of Janaina Pinheiro - "altogether tighter, more sculpted, more honed".

And for the first time on FMS we said olá to Grace Kelly.



Grace Kelly. No really, that appears to be what her name is. Or Grace Kelly Bom Bom. She adds that to it. Or, just plain ol' Gracesex, which is her Instagram moniker. Can't you tell? She's the shy and retiring type is Grace. Not.

The (Crossfit) Games Are Coming

Starting on 19th July, the CrossFit Games, unlike the European Union, shows no signs of getting any smaller. Athletes from 175 different countries participated in qualifying. Now the top 40 will do battle for the title "Fittest on Earth". As has become customary on FMS, our CrossFit correspondent Aiden has been analysing the field so you don't have to and has hand-picked a selection of the finest "Crossfit talent". We'll be meeting all five of his selections this week, along with two FMS picks - though we don't know much about CrossFit, we do know what we like!




We liked, among others (clockwise from top left) Sheila Barden, France's Célia Gabbiani, Brooke Wells (just 20!), and (also French) Jeanne Rossarie.

Obsessions (some old, some new)

One way or another, I've spent a fair bit of time looking back this year on FMS. Must be my age, because it's certainly not a lack of quality in the new female muscle entering my consciousness these days that makes me think of the old days. Maybe I'm just rediscovering (or perhaps chasing) the thrill I felt when I first encountered female muscle. That was my theory when I wrote these posts back in the summer anyway!



New obsessions included the latest woman to be thought of as "The One", Cass Martin (above). Insanely gorgeous and, it turns out, exceptionally strong as well, FMS is not the only one who's fallen heads over heels for her. Even non-heads can't help themselves. I don't like women with muscles, wrote one on Cass's Instagram, but for you I'll make an exception. How nice! She must have been so pleased.



And we also found ourselves drooling over two ladies, one British, one American, with, among their many other charms, absolutely spectacular chests. The lady from the UK turned out to be, after a little digging, Layla Allen (left) - I don't usually obsess about a particular bodypart, I wrote, but sometimes it's unavoidable. It is so exceptional, so swoonworthy on its own, that I can't help myself. And neither can a lot of Layla fans.



With Mica Zumpano Schneider though, the attraction was based as much on the attitude as the body. And Mica made me go really silly. Imagine being poolside as Mica struts in in her bikini with her six-pack and her shoulders and her biceps and that smile and that hair and those aviators, I gushed like some kind of pathetic lovesick schoolboy with a crush on his best friend's super hot muscular Mum. Imagine you're a woman. You might even have been feeling pretty good about yourself as you lay out in your bikini and noticed one or two guys looking your way, but how you feel in the presence of such an obviously superior woman? Look at her, glowing with vitality and confidence and power and animal sexuality and those muscles that you always thought made women look manly but (look at her six-pack!) there's no mistaking she's all woman. And you suddenly feel rather inadequate.

Not too proud of that paragraph. Probably true though.

But it wasn't all new swoons. The return to the stage of Physique dream of Jamie Pinder was a major cause for celebration in the Swell house, not only because she returned, but also because she plain owned the Chicago Pro. For this old Pinderette anyway, her WOW factor was still very much in evidence. Very much.



The conclusion of the week? I'm still totally, hopelessly obsessed...

And in the last week of July there was more of that looking back, as we featured readers' favourite routines of the recent and not so recent past in a joyous celebration. It's an art form, we fear, that is in danger of being forgotten these days, despite one or two notable exceptions, so perhaps this was a timely reminder of "this is how you do it", although the IFBB will have to give the ladies (of both the Physique and Bodybuilding divisions) not just more time, but also fewer restrictions on the content of their performances if the routine is going to make a proper comeback.

And as your collective favourite you lovely readers chose...



Get your breath back. August is coming next.