Sunday 27 May 2018

FBBUK: Ade Bishop's Arnold Africa Adventure

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Our final lady of the week with a reason for a post-contest celebration is Britain's Ade Bishop, who was rewarded for making the unusual (for a Brit) move of competing at the Arnold Africa with an amateur win and brand spanking new IFBB Elite Pro status. Don't ask me the difference "Elite" makes, but it allowed Ade to compete with the Elite Physique pros the following day and actually earn some money for her 3rd place.

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Time for some well-earned R & R.

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Follow Ade on Instagram.

And speaking of R & R, FMS will be taking a break for the next couple of weeks.

Saturday 26 May 2018

Megan Elizabeth @NPC Jr. USAs

I thought she was looking amazing in the lead up to the show. And actually, so did she.

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Anyone can slap on a sexy outfit and feel like a million bucks, but very few people feel beautiful in nothing but the skin they are in, she wrote. I built this body and I will show it off as much as I damn well please. Favorite look and hairstyle to date. Best physique to date. I'm feeling more beautiful and satisfied than ever before.

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Clearly, Megan Elizabeth Colvin would be taking to the Jr. USAs stage as relaxed and confident with the package she was bringing as any. Let's go out and have some FUNNN! she suggested to her WPD sisters, showing off her abs after checking in.

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I thought she'd been looking amazing in the lead up to the show, but seeing her glammed and tanned and having that funnn on stage took my breath away (quite literally), the swoonometer up to 11, and the best part of two hours out of my day!

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I find myself stuck on these images again now, days after I first saw them. She is, before we even get onto the muscles, absolutely gorgeous, and - though I'm well-aware there are those who disagree - for me the "wild child" styling (the funky hair, the piercings, the tats) accentuate her beauty even more. I don't adore muscle women because I go for the mainstream look; Megan's "alternativeness" is very much part of her appeal. But mostly it's about the muscles. The "melon delts" and the "thick, meaty pecs" that many other forum heads have drooled over, but top to toe Megan's made herself so hard and thick now that quite frankly I get so overwhelmed I don't know where to look.

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Megan won her class, of course she did - despite no little competition from outstanding amateur Physique competitors like Tia Douglass and Ashley Bowman, and though she didn't, in the end, win the Overall (which was awarded to Emily Schubert, as we saw on Tuesday), 2nd Overall bagged Megan the other pro card that was on offer.

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Two very different physiques, and two very different looks, but if Emily and Megan represent the future of Physique, I'd say the division has a very sexy future indeed.

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Follow Megan on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for more.

Friday 25 May 2018

Diana Schnaidt's Optimum Physique

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As well as being a good day for winner Tome Ameko, the Optimum Classic Pro was also a good day for 4th place Diana Schnaidt, by far the best result she's had this year.

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But as impressive as these stage shots are, you only really get a sense of just how Amazonian Diana is when you see her next to the other first callout ladies - even compared to the pretty damn Amazonian Valentina Mishina, Diana looks large.

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But best of all would be to see Diana up-close and personal. Perhaps going through her compulsory (and some not strictly encouraged) poses in her hotel room before she thundered up onto the stage. All those gorgeous muscles right there in yer face.

Something like this perhaps...



Best Muscle Video - the name gets more accurate with every new clip they post.

Thursday 24 May 2018

Magnificent Maria Luisa Baeza Diaz (& Other Figure Phenoms) @New York Pro 2018

It wasn't that long ago - 2010 to be exact - that Cathy Lefrançois became the last Female Bodybuilding champion to be crowned at the New York Pro. Since then, however, there has been plenty of female muscle interest provided by the Physique division. Juliana Malacarne won there three times in a row between 2012 and 2014, and after Michelle Cummings had successfully moved "down" from Bodybuilding to claim the Physique crown there in 2015, Shanique Grant took over from Juliana as the Queen of New York, winning there in 2016 and winning there again last year.

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Given that kind of history as the show where Women's Physique's brightest stars are born, it was disappointing to see the show's promoter(s) had ditched the class this year, although thanks to the wonderful women of Figure, it was only slightly so.

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Shuffling between the two divisions seems to be a thing now. This year in New York, for example, Maria Rita Penteado - runner-up to Shanique in Physique here last year - and Liz Montalbano both made their Figure debuts. Liz had competed in Physique as recently as May 6th at the Champions of Power and Grace, less than two full weeks before she competed in New York. Doing it the other way round we find FMS swoon and Figure Olympian Jessica Reyes Padilla dipping her toe into Physique in North Carolina, then 13 days later returning to Figure and finishing runner-up in New York.

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Has Physique become Figure without heels? Has Figure become Physique without flexing? Either way, the lines, or rather the physiques on show in the two divisions appear to be getting more and more similar, and despite predictions from the forum prophets of doom that Physique will get phased out in the near future, I personally prefer to point to the positives. Firstly, more muscle in Figure is - and I think we can all agree on this - most definitely for the better. And secondly, if the IFBB decides it doesn't want to have Physique, that could well mean the division ending up with FBBing under the Wings of Strength regime. Not only would I suggest that it would be more likely to flourish than disappear should that happen, it would also be the next logical step on the road towards an all-female federation free from IFBB control.

Anyway, back to New York!

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A special mention for Deepika Chowdury, India's first - and only - IFBB pro. Regular readers may remember we first celebrated her back in the summer of 2016, admiring the drive that had led her to leave India to compete with the best. After a flawless record of 5 wins in five NPC shows she was awarded IFBB pro status, and made her pro debut in New York in 2016. She finished 12th, and has since been back home leading her own seminars to promote fitness among Indian women both young and old.

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Under the guidance of Olympian Figure phenom Gennifer Strobo, she's also clearly been hard at it improving her physique. Just five years ago she was a molecular biologist with a fitness dream. Now, on this second visit to New York as a pro she placed 4th. But as excited as she was to have gained her first ever Olympia qualification points, Deepika is such an educator that she used her social media to explain to "all to my dear friends in India who lack the information" both how the Olympia qualification system works, and where they can find all the scorecards for IFBB pro events!

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And we also think we should give a mention to the "big and very attractive" 10th place Amber Eutsey, who was competing in the fourth show of her debut pro season.

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"You can't tell me this lovely lady couldn't compete in Physique," wrote one forum poster recently, echoing our earlier point about the blurring of lines between the classes, but that's not the only reason why Amber has impressed us. Great package, amazing structure, beautiful symmetry, and that's according to the Head Judge at her second pro show in Orlando! Recently, Amber caused much gnashing of teeth on the forum whose first rule is... for her Instagram comment that "if I can break you, I can't date you." In the very same post, however, she informed us that "boys with muscles, good looks, intelligence and money don't impress me... I have my own." All I will say is that the gorgeous, sexy Amber reminds this (chubby, plain, dumb and penniless) boy of a young Asha Hadley, and that's just about the biggest compliment I can give!

And so to the latest Queen of New York...

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The ever classy Maria will need no introduction to most of you lovely readers given you voted in sufficient numbers for her to re-enter the Hot and Hard 100 this year at #28. What a woman SHOULD look like, reckoned one of those voters, and for once - or perhaps that should be once again - judges and fans are on the same page.

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Until this show, 2018 had (apart from that Hot and Hard 100 re-entry, obviously) been quite frustrating for her apparently. 6th at the Arnolds in Ohio and Australia and 6th in Pittsburgh earlier in the month for many IFBB pros that would be a decent season, but not for Maria. "Repetitive", she called it. Changes were made to her prep, and after her "prestigious" (her word) win (New York may no longer have FBBing or Physique, but it's still one of the bigger shows to those who can compete) she felt those changes were thoroughly vindicated. I'm on cloud 9, she said afterwards. This is a show to come back to every year, and to win it is a dream come true.

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Congratulations to Maria and all the Figure phenoms in New York.

Check out full results and galleries here, and incidentally, last week we brought news of actual Female Bodybuilders, particularly Maryse Manios, in action in Bari, Italy, but bemoaned the lack of contest pictures available. Well, now they've gone up on NPC News Online you can check out Maryse here, and all the results and galleries here.

Wednesday 23 May 2018

Tome Ameko's Optimum Physique

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As elite Women's Physique athletes go, Tomefafa "Tome" Ameko, is pretty modest. Her social media posts are rare, she has not (to my knowledge) ever put herself forward to any of the big schmotography sites, and perhaps because of that, she receives relatively little attention compared to her Physique Olympian peers. Oh yes, didn't you know? She's been to the Olympia, debuting last year. She's also finished in the top 10 at the Physique International (also last year), and at the Optimum Classic Pro last weekend, she secured her second pro title and another Olympia invite.

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She started as a Bodybuilder, at first a young Lightweight who we find listed in 2004 winning her class at the Excalibur Championships. The first images we see of her date from the same contest three years later, her premium genetics already in evidence.

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The Lightweight Bodybuilder: 2007 Excalibur Championships

She would win her class again the following year at the Los Angeles Championships, and in 2009 (now a Middleweight) she competed at national level for the first time at the NPC USAs. It took her five years and six shows to gain her pro card, which she got for winning her class - a decade after her first contest - at the 2014 NPC Nationals.

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The Middleweight Nationals' winner, 2014

Immediately - as any sensible non-Heavyweight Bodybuilder would do - she switched to the Physique division. Lean and muscular on her Physique debut at the Europa Phoenix in late 2015, she placed 11th in a very competitive field. 2016 started better with a top 6 finish in San Antonio, which she followed with a return to Phoenix, this time to win her first pro title, a title that came with qualification to the 2017 Olympia.

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The Physique Olympian, 2017

Impressive as she looked, she failed to place, a top 10 finish at the Arnolds earlier in the season was probably a fairer reflection of where she is at in the elite Physique world right now. Her second pro win at her first show this season strongly suggests that too, and though - by all accounts - the judges last weekend had it close after the comparison round, there was only ever going to be one winner after the evening show.

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Mmmmonique Jones had put together the routine for this show, "working magic on my clumsy ass" as Tome (modestly) put it. Winning the Optimum Classic last night was an incredible experience, she added. I love this event and it's always wonderful to share the stage with so many beautiful athletes that share a passion for our sport.

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Beautiful and passionate they may be, but on this occasion none could match the sweep and definition in her quads or her bulging, vascular shoulders. Nor could they match her abs - as always - tight and hard, her ever more impressively wide lats, or the thickness of her gorgeous, beefy pecs. She'd be far too modest to say so though.

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Follow Tome on Instagram - just don't expect regular posts!