FMS @RP2018: No Comparison?

And we finish our week at the world's premier Female Bodybuilding contest (bit belatedly today, sorry about that) with the competitor who most exceeded the pre-contest expectations. Canada's blond bombshell Nicki Chartrand was barely mentioned in the lead-up to the event (not least by me), but ultimately walked off with the (previously monopolised by Sheila Bleck) Best Poser prize, and 4th place.



We have already waxed lyrical about her performance on the day - and particularly on the night with that scintillating winning posing routine (see Tales from the Feed ) - so instead we decided we'd try to piece together the Nicki Chartrand story so far.

Unfortunately, we didn't find much to piece together.

We do, however, know how she looked back in c.2015, when she seems to be competing at regional Canadian level, as a Bodybuilder too. The research team have really struggled to find any definitive list of her contest placings from the early part of her career - which really bothers me (can you tell?) and is the main reason why today's post has gone up so tardily. Anyway, it'll have to do. Here is our first comparison.

COMPARISON #1



Nicki v.2015 and Nicki v.2018

By 2016, we do know, she was the CBBF Nationals Women's Bodybuilding champion - a title previously held by (among others) Negrita Jade, Laura Binetti, Desiree Ellis, Sophie Duquette, Autumn Raby, Nicole Ball, and Fabiola Boulanger.

Not a bad list at all.

However, and despite being a Heavyweight, it is not in Women's Bodybuilding that Nicki Chartrand makes her pro debut, but in Physique - at the 2017 Toronto Pro.

COMPARISON #2



Toronto Pro 2017 and Rising Phoenix 2018

There's so obviously too much muscle on her for IFBB Physique judges that it's almost funny imagining their faces, and within weeks Nicki debuted as a pro Bodybuilder. At the Lenda Murray/Norfolk Pro she beat the fan fave Theresa Ivancik (also on debut) and beat her well. Then she finished off 2017 with 12th place at the Rising Phoenix.



And then this year, she began her season early, at the Hawaii Pro, again in a less than numerous line-up, but up against a woman on debut who many fans were excited about seeing - Alina protégé Jennie Roosa. And the result? Nicki 1st, fan fave 2nd. Nicki could now celebrate her 2nd professional title and start prep for her second RP.

Which pretty much brings us up-to-date, but before we go, one more comparison.

The thought occurred to me while I was waiting for the Research Dept. to tell me they hadn't found much about Nicki's early career. There's something about her double biceps pose, the way she positions her long, muscle curvy legs when she hits it. Her general statuesqueness (well, it's a word now!), and I guess her colouring too, reminded me of a legend from the not-too-distant Female Bodybuilding past...

COMPARISON #3



Brigita MsO2011 and Nicki RP2018

Perhaps not a fair comparison in terms of where Nicki is right now, but instead a peek into the not-too-distant future at where Nicki has the potential to be before too long.

Just me?

Enjoy!

ROARRRRR!!!

With Shannon Rabon (-Perdikis) the Overall Bodybuilding champion (we warned you! - see FMS passim) and one of three new Female Bodybuilding pros, plus Dana Shemesh (-Meirovitch) among the 20(!) new Physique pros, this will not be the last and only time FMS pays a visit to last weekend's NPC North Americans in Pittsburgh.

However, our initial research hasn't got much further than the (always) stunning (especially so because she now competes in Physique) Lauren Martin-Stow.



There were a lot of ladies in the Physique division, but I seriously doubt any of them had as good a time on stage as Lauren. Or at least that's how she makes it seem.



Hardly the biggest, hardly the most ripped - she doesn't even look that tanned, or oiled up for that matter. But these normal prerequisites just go right out of the window when there's so much emoting going on. Just her range of expression as she performed her chest pose was surely enough to cause all sorts of mess for heads in the audience.

And as for the side triceps...



Was anyone lucky enough to have actually been there? Did she actually roar? Did it shake the auditorium to its foundations, make the building's structure unsafe? Did subsequent classes have to be held in a hastily rearranged alternative venue?



Answers on a postcard please.

And as an extra treat, here she is emoting in motion.



Enjoy!

Lauren for She Hulk! And She-Ra. And Wonder Woman...

Oh, and she was 2nd in her class. Good enough. Lauren is a pro now.

Summer Lovin': Natasha

Today, we catch up with Canadian stunner Natasha Aughey.

And not before time. It's been a while since we last saw her "lush muscle and beauty" here on FMS, far too long judging by some of her more recent Instagram posts.

Such as this, for example...



Let yourself wander, says Natasha.

Well this certainly made my mind wander, imagining all sorts of "if you go down in the woods today" scenarios. When I came round, I found my hands had wandered too.

More Summer Lovin' tomorrow...

January Clearance! [S-U]

"Too many to feature here" is a phrase I seem to have typed a lot over the past year, referring to the vast number of women and/or images the female muscle head is faced with in these instant information times. On the upside, you never go short. The downside for the blogger is there are far too many to feature here - there I go again.

It felt wrong just to forget about the women we intended to feature at some stage during 2017 but didn't. Firstly, the fact they have come to our attention at all is the result of some pretty solid sifting by the FMS research team, and it would just be plain rude to ignore all that hard work. And secondly, it's not the case that we once thought these women were worth posting about and don't anymore - we still do.

The solution we came up with is The FMS January Clearance - we're going to feature all the women who are taking up space in the "TBC" folder on the 2017 planner. And you're getting them all together in a sort of but not really alphabetical order (you'll see what I mean). Further your enjoyment by clicking on the names.

Five beautiful bods a day for seven days. Have fun!


KAL SHEPPARD



We've seen some Figure ladies with outstanding arm development already this week, but perhaps Kal Sheppard's arms are the most outstandingly developed of them all.



Kal (short for Kalli, apparently) competes in the CBBF, and has made little impression in terms of contest results thus far. Nevertheless, with those arms and those looks, she's gained plenty of attention and has already been snapped by schmotographer Rick Oliver for HerBiceps - which she described as "the most amazing experience".



Expect to see a lot more of her - on the schmotography sites and forums - in 2018.


As names go, this next one's a doozy...

SHELACE SHOEMAKER



And so, it seems, is the name's owner, a recently-carded IFBB Figure pro and mother from Nevada. I’m not much of a talker, she says. So I let my shirts do it for me.



Very eloquent they are too.



And her taste in Halloween costumes isn't too shabby either!


YVONNE TATARA



From Germany, another Figure lady with, as a forum champion of hers points out, "a super V-shape" and much more besides. Too many tats for some, I'm sure, but not too many to prevent her placing 4th in her class at last year's Deutsche Meisterschaft.



If her transformation pics on her IG are anything to go by, it's taken her the best part of five years to achieve her impressively wide-narrow-wide physique, and her many HD workout clips are as exciting as any I've seen recently - she gets quite the pump on.



Heiß!


MANDY URNER



Our next never-before-posted-on-FMS beauty comes to us from the never-before-reported-on-FMS world of Elite Canadian Championship Wrestling via a more recent foray into Figure competition. Mandy, in her wrestling days when perhaps she wasn't a wrestler but a "valet" (whatever that is, I really don't know what I'm talking about here) went by the name "Goddess Mandy", a moniker she still uses for her social media.



She seems to either be leaving or actually to have left her wrestle game days behind her now, and she competed, as far as I know, in both Canada and the US last year, not placing very high but certainly coming away more determined to make her mark in Figure. Can't wait to pack on the gains and blow this chick out of the water next year! she wrote as she entered her 2017/18 off-season. Operation build a back 2.0 is already in full swing. I won't rest until my weaknesses become my strengths.



Not averse to showing it off in its entirety, if some of her racier IG posts are anything to go by. Maybe we should be paying more attention to what is going on in the ECCW...


UUGII GAMBAGAA



Seems another world we have neglected is that of Mongolian Female Bodybuilding.



Uuugii Gambagaa is its leading light by some distance.



The blood of the Great Khan pulses in there somewhere for sure!

Paris au printemps avec Joanna Jean

So, your travelling companion wants to know why exactly you have to keep going back to the same place day after day. Surely there's more to Paris than the Eiffel Tower?



Whoever is in charge of such things really should look into recruiting this sizzling Haitian/Canadian Figure phenom and new IFBB pro to do some publicité for them.



Maybe they already have!



Joanna Jean is on Instagram (always, not just when she's à Paris).

Enjoy!

She's So Shredded: Annie Lemay

Honestly, I'm not 100% convinced that Annie Lemay is real.



Face of an angel, the body of a Bikini babe fast becoming a Figure goddess.



Muscle exhibitionist extraordinaire.



Naughty flexes when she ain't supposed to.



She's just too good to be true.



Is it possible she's just a very sophisticated, next generation avatar designed to take over my life, devote every waking hour to, and, finally, drain me of my life savings?



Working so far.

Follow her (possibly fake) Instagram feed here.