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.

FBBUK: Our Girl

This week's Figure-dominated theme with a bit of a coincidental military presence continues with former British Army corporal and Iraq veteran Melissa Haywood.



Whilst deployed on an exercise, I came across a copy of Muscle & Fitness Hers, she recalls. On the front cover was a curvy, tight and toned woman who looked fit, healthy and strong. Inside, I saw sample weight training programmes and diets that consisted of 6 meals a day and lots of protein. And I just thought "Hey! I can do this!" and started from there! The cover model, she later discovered was Amanda Latona, and Melissa went on to be a major force in (the then-nascent) Bikini division in Britain. She won her first British title in 2012 while still serving in the army, and took runner's-up medals from the Arnold Classic Europe and European Championships back home. Then at the 2014 English Grand Prix, she became one of our very first IFBB Bikini pros.



The following year she travelled to Miami for her first pro Bikini show. Looking a tad on the pasty side, she finished 12th out of 20, and then she pretty much fell off our radar completely. Having left the army, she set up an online training/body transformation business with fellow Bikini babe Jamie Alterton. Was she too focused on helping others achieve their Bikini dreams to compete now? Already married, was she starting a family? Turns out neither were true. Melissa was taking time out to grow.



Some of these Figure pros are absolutely stacked! Melissa exclaimed in a blog post this time last year. They are dry and they are hard and they are grainy and their shoulders... are out here! At this point, Melissa indicates where a huge shoulder would go out to, comfortably twice the size of her own impressively built deltoid. They are MASSIVE! she exclaims breathlessly, and I'm never going to look like that...



Fortunately, however, Melissa also noticed that not all the Figure pros looked so intimidating. Name-checking Stephanie Hammermeister and Chelsea Larson, Melissa talked about a more attainable - and for her more desirable - "lean, athletic" Figure look with "good muscle shape and symmetry". I could tell what was coming - can you? Barely a minute of the blog post later and she's announcing that she would make her pro Figure debut in San Marino that November. And that's exactly what she did.



Up against the cream of European Figure (Adela Ondrejovicova and winner Zulema Duran to name but two) plus Olympians such as Georgina Lona and Jessica Reyes Padilla, Melissa placed 8th out of 22, two places above UKBFF Figure champ Anna Banks. Now she was in arguably the most competitive division, and at such a competitive show, this was most satisfactory as far as debuts go, but there were definitely areas she could sharpen, she felt. Might need to work on my walk, she confessed after seeing the photos. I look like I’m marching to the shop to get milk!



The Melissa that emerged form her winter work was determined she would be better next time. It feels so good to be back! she wrote at the start of May. Eight weeks to get as lean as possible. Her goal was the new Portugal Pro in mid-July, another European event, but one not nearly as subscribed as San Marino. This time Melissa would only be up against European competition - nine women including veteran British division jumper Carmen Knights, and rising star Samantha Forbes. The real competition though was against herself, her San Marino package, and the day before the show she obviously felt she had achieved that. The venue is incredible (our stage rises out of the floor!), she told her Instagram followers. Whatever happens tomorrow is out of my hands so I’m just going to enjoy the whole experience and have fun on stage.



She placed 5th out of 10 - I would have had her 3rd, but then I'm biased and what do I know anyway? The post-show smile as she wielded her medal needed no caption.



And I kind of expected that to be that as far as Melissa was concerned for the year, unless another visit to San Marino before Christmas. Once again, I was completely wrong, in fact I'm not even sure she went home first or just went from Portugal direct. Melissa was going Stateside for her next show, you see. Los Angeles to be precise.



The line-up is stacked with so many amazing and inspiring athletes, she wrote on the day, and she was not wrong. As we've seen already this week on FMS, the (Figure-only) LA show is most definitely the IFBB pro Figure big time. This was easily the best line-up Melissa had ever been part of, many of them, as she was, coming off a show the week or two before. I’m just going to have fun and enjoy every second, she said. Again.



Here at FMS, we thought Melissa looked absolutely sensational. She'd certainly nailed the "lean, athletic" look she wants. Great definition, great muscle shape, great symmetry. We were all very pleased for her, but British Figure in the US historically, and in that line-up... we weren't exactly holding our breath for a top 10 placing.



But what do we know?! Amazing to find myself amongst Olympians in the first call outs! she wrote midway through the contest. And ultimately, Melissa achieved one of the best British Figure results ever. 4th place!!! she gushed afterwards. So happy!



And then it was back to the grind. No rest for Melissa, even when she's had something to celebrate. It's only Wednesday, she wrote, on Wednesday. My first full week of training since before the Portugal Pro and I am literally feeling BATTERED.



I think that really is it now for Melissa this contest year. It's time for what she calls her "reflection" season - looking back at what she's done well, could do better etc. (rather than my initial idea that she would just be spending a lot of time in front of the mirror!). Clearly, and despite all my observations to the contrary earlier in the week, there still is a place in the division for the "lean, athletic" package, and those already taking inspiration from the likes of Stephanie Hammermeister and Chelsea Larson could learn much from what Melissa Haywood has done over the last 36 months.



The rise of UK Figure continues...

Woman of the Week: Thea Dougher

I first became aware of her by the name she's more commonly known as, Thea Renee (sometimes with, sometimes without the last name Schuler added as well), a few years ago. Big, blond, beautiful and tattooed, I remember being impressed, she may even have featured on the blog - though I can't recall in what capacity - at some stage.



She seemed to disappear, I'd read something about her getting married - or did I dream that? Anyway, off the radar she went, until the back end of last year, when a bunch of images appeared on GwM, along with "news" that she had a new Instagram moniker - crazy_fitfreak. She looked fantastic - bigger, more beautiful. And as 2017 turned to 2018, it looked more and more as though Thea was preparing for something.



Ah yes! That's right... MILITARY.

Scrolling through her IG one night jogged the memory, explained why she wasn't on the radar (geddit?!), why I'd been so keen in the first place (tough as nails, uniform) and why the only YouTube video I could find of her was a 2014 contest in Guam.



The something she was preparing for turned out to be the NPC Los Angeles Championships, where she competed, not under Schuler, but her married name of Dougher - Thea Dougher. Despite my suspicions that she'd got married some time ago, she was in fact a bride only this year, and quite the outfit she got married in. However, at the time I checked the pics of the contest, I didn't know any of that, so I wasn't expecting much from the Physique winner, because experience tells me that at regional NPC shows, it's best not to expect too much, even of the Physique...

WOW!!!




Even then - perhaps because I was a bit, you know, "worked up" - I didn't immediately equate this vision of muscular beauty with the (largely unglamorous and unsmiling) Thea I knew before. It was the back tat - "that horroble [sic] back tattoo" as it is known in some circles - that eventually made me realise exactly who I was looking at. Big, blond, beautiful and tattooed (yeah!) AND glammed, tanned and striking those poses with power and elegance, she really ticked EVERY SINGLE ONE of the boxes.



Full swoonspin. Felt pretty damn good up there! she said after prejudging. Looked good too, pretty much like my idea of Physique - a huge, powerful and yet very feminine woman. No surprise she won first in her class and Overall with a body (and styling) like that. She had a package, as Paige Sandgren once put it, that "the judges can't deny". So proud of what I brought to the stage and very happy with it all! she wrote as she celebrated. I’ve come a long way since my last show years ago.



We’ll see what happens next, she continues...



This was four years after her first show. And she apparently made her fella wait a few years. I'm seriously worried it might be 2022 before we see her on stage again, though I very sincerely hope not. Still, imagine how big she would be able to get by then...

Enjoy!