BRITAIN'S KATE ERRINGTON WINS THE ARNOLD CLASSIC AUSTRALIA
I would love to say "so read the headline on the [insert name of mainstream UK news source, the BBC, for example]", but neither the national nor even the local media around Kate's Maidstone home has picked up on her achievement. Not yet anyway.
After Kate's remarkable 2nd place at the Arnolds at the beginning of March, FMS (not very boldly) predicted that "She's going to Australia for the Arnolds there next, and she'll be among the favourites to win", so her triumph Down Under was not a complete surprise. On top of that, the fact that Whitney Jones, who both coaches Kate and was the only woman to beat her in Ohio, had decided not to bother with the long trip to Melbourne served only to shorten Kate's odds and make her the favourite.
She still had to win though, and win she did, looking even better than she had earlier in the month on her pro debut to finish 2nd in the heels and turns round before blowing the rest of the field away with her routine to place first by some distance. What an AMAZING weekend, she wrote after it had begun to sink in. 2 weeks ago at Arnolds Ohio was a dream come true, now this???!!! I am on Cloud 9. THIS IS CRAZY.
Indeed it is. British women may have won Bodybuilding titles in both the distant and recent past. Lately we have also celebrated our first pro Physique win, but, they have never got close to winning pro Fitness titles. Then Emma Paveley became the first British woman to win one last year in Vancouver. It was against a much smaller field than Kate had to deal with though, and all of the women who Kate beat in Ohio and in Melbourne finished above Emma at the Olympia last year. Kate's win is, without question, the greatest British pro Fitness display ever (her 2nd at the USA Arnolds being the previous best!). Her pro career has had the most sensational start possible.
Looks like the suit's been upgraded too! Kate's amazing progress from (left) the Arnold Amateur 2017 to (right) her irresistible winning pro package at the Arnolds Australia, March 2018
And it was only around this time last year that she was winning the Arnold Amateur to gain that pro card. The improvement she has made in her conditioning is nothing short of incredible. She obviously chose wisely when she hired Jones as her coach.
But most important, I think, is the fact that Kate is a born performer. It's what she does as a day job, after all. Burlesque shows, fire-eating... Kate, it seems, is never happier than when all eyes are on her. There's a saying, 'Dance like nobody's watching...' but where's the fun in that? she wrote recently. I want EVERYONE to be watching.
This win makes her Olympia qualified, and everyone will be watching her as a potential champ there now. Meanwhile, we won't take our eyes off her prep on Instagram.
The recent extreme cold and snow (aka "The Beast from the East") in the UK last week, left this female muscle fan sans wife for a few days last week, as she waited for the roads to be cleared before attempting to drive back home. Crucially, my period of solitude included the early hours of Saturday morning, so I was able to spend some quality time with the Figure, Physique and Fitness divisions at the Arnolds via the live stream.
Now, I've watched live streams of big shows before, and unless it's the Arizona Pro/Rising Phoenix, the biggest problem a female muscle fan has is that invariably the running order has alternate male and female classes, so as exciting as the Figure finals were, they were immediately followed by some men in old-fashioned posing "shorts", not the women of my Physique dreams. Bit of a passion killer those shorts.
So you are constantly revving up then getting all deflated. Make yourself a drink, maybe a snack. Rearrange the furniture, empty the washing machine. Check Instagram for new #arnoldsportsfestival uploads... And the buggers in their shorts are still up there - is it my imagination or do the chaps get longer for their "routines"?
We were in the company of "experts" Shawn Ray and Kai Greene. But it became all too apparent very quickly that you would be extremely hard-pressed to find two men from the Bodybuilding community who were less knowledgeable about the women's divisions. Whoever at MD is responsible for these things must have been aware of their presenters' limitations, and so former Ms Figure Olympia and Ms Figure International Latorya Watts had been drafted in to bring her knowledge of Fitness and Physique as well as her own Figure division to bear on the commentary for the three female finals.
Are you the kind of competitor who looks at what the other girls are doing? Shawn asked her as the Figure finalists came out. Well, I used to be... she replied.
At least she knows who the reigning Ms Figure Olympia is, which is not something Shawn or Kai can claim. As Cydney was introduced and strode across the stage as she does, Shawn (or maybe it was Kai) muttered something about the top 6. "Ms Figure Olympia..." Latorya reminded them, although that's perhaps not quite the right word - you can't really remind someone of something they don't actually know in the first place. "Well, that remains to be seen..." said Shawn/Kai, obviously under the impression that Latorya was making a prediction rather than stating a fact. Understandably, she didn't labour the point, and kept pretty quiet after that.
Kai's contribution to the female classes consisted mainly of bellowing extended monosyllabic approval when ladies who particularly appealed to him took to the stage. "WowowowoWOWWOWWOW!!!" is about as exact as I can get to his "expert commentary" on Physique's Essence Monet's arrival. If that's all you are expected to bring to the live stream commentary, I can confidently say I could do that.
And my own personal biggest bellow of the night came as Natalia Coelho performed her (short, and I've checked since and it really was shorter than all the rest of the top 10 Physique finishers') routine. Specifically it was the moment when, facing the judges, she extended one leg, bent the other, lowering herself down. A double biceps in that position (I think, I was kind of transfixed by her inner thigh), followed by a lat spread. And as she hit the latter she put both hands flat on either side of her waist...
Now either Natalia has a pair of really huge hands, or she has got the tiniest waist imaginable, because the tips of the fingers on her right hand met the tips of her fingers on her left hand, like your fingertips might do when holding a decent-sized sandwich.
WowowowoWOWWOWWOW!!!
After the Physique routines had been (seemingly) whizzed through we did at least get the pleasure of a posedown - for the best part of a minute - before the only women who actually flex their muscles were whooshed off the stage. The Arnold Festival organisers quite obviously see the Fitness routines as the main attraction on the Friday night, and they were given quite the build up, "like nothing else you'll see on this stage tonight".
To be fair, they are spectacular. The costumes, the contortions, and the (made to look effortless) feats of strength always impress, but what strikes me most every time I do watch the Fitness routines is the element of risk in some of the tumbling and acrobatics that goes on. As billed, this is unique to this division. Lose your balance while attempting a Masino-style flex on one leg and a lady might look a bit clumsy. Get a backflip wrong and there is a real danger of serious injury to the head/neck/back.
You can hear the crowd gasp on those rare occasions when a competitor goes close to hospitalising themselves, but it is a testament to the level of performance these women achieve that such disasters almost never happen. It's the speed and the height of their jumps and somesaults that more often than not takes the audience's breath away.
And after the "big show", the awards. Again, you have to sit through the male classes (or not) by the time the 212 or whatever it's called were getting their awards I was having to pace around just to stay awake. Cyd didn't win Figure, which I was a bit disappointed about, and then the clear top two in the Physique class - Shanique Grant and the impossibly small-waisted one - were separated before (as we saw yesterday) Kate Errington ended the night on a high for us British fans.
Goodnight Shawn and Kai (I think Latorya had skulked off long before the final awards were given out, and who can blame her?), it's been a night of highs and lows, of (unintentional on your part) hilarity, and gasps and cheers from my end. As always seems to be the case with Olympia and Arnold live streams - it's not been nearly as amazing as the anticipation of watching it was, but in the end, I'm glad I came.
Do you think I'm ready?Kate Errington asked her Instagram followers the day before she made her pro debut at this year's Arnold Classic. Just out of a hot bath, everything was "popping" and she most certainly looked ready. Then again, I'd thought she'd looked pretty ready at the start of her "peak week", inviting her followers to guess her bodyfat percentage. At the risk of sounding like an IFBB official, maybe she was too ready now, too lean, too ripped. Would it affect her scores to be so utterly shredded? And that depleted, would she have enough in the tank to do her routine justice?
As the first pictures of the heels and turns round went up, it was clear Kate knew what she was doing. She looked resplendent. I had her placed 1st, but then I am no judge and (you may have noticed) can be slightly biased in favour of the British ladies.
I settled down in the evening to watch the show on the Muscular Development live stream. It took a while to get to the Fitness routines, and Kate, if memory serves, was on second last. Again, she looked amazing - so amazing she was described as such by the "expert" commentary team (more about this tomorrow) - and her performance was tremendous, showcasing all her grace, her power, and her dance skills. It was quite different to the majority of the other routines, I noted, but as I haven't watched too many Fitness shows, I lacked the knowledge to assess whether this difference was a good or bad thing (and the "experts" on the commentary were no help at all).
When the time came for the awards to be dished out, I wasn't holding my breath. It was her pro debut, and she was by far the least experienced of the women on the stage. The best ever British pro Fitness result had been Kizzy Vaines' 7th places (2012 & 2013), so history wasn't on her side either. She had been in the first heels and turns call out though, but she wasn't called in 6th, or in 5th, either. She had looked awfully good in the heels and turns, I reminded myself. And that routine had been spectacular...
Then Regiane Da Silva, top 3 at the Olympia on three occasions, was announced in 4th. I'd thought 10th for Kate would have been good before the show, then 3rd went to Bethany Wagner (just the 7 Olympias). And then... "From the United Kingdom, your Fitness International runner-up on her professional debut... Kate Errington!"
WHAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?! Kate's reaction was pretty much my reaction. 2nd place was beyond my wildest expectations, she wrote afterwards. Mine too, Kate, mine too.
OK, to put this result into perspective, you must realise this is not just the best Fitness placing Britain has ever had at the Arnolds, it's also our best EVER Arnolds' result in any division, writing over Gayle Moher's 3rd place at the 1998 Ms International. And on her pro debut.
She's going to Australia for the Arnolds there next, and she'll be among the favourites to win. She may still be as unknown here in the UK as she was when she took off for Columbus, but the world of IFBB pro Fitness knows her name now for sure.
The er, day job. Or rather "night job", truth be told.
You may recognise this woman. In the last couple of months rather a lot of content from Dana Shemesh's Instagram has been posted on the big fan forums, her striking looks and densely-muscled physique inspiring all manner of gushing compliments, and even comparisons with Denise Rutkowski. Though some fans claim to have been aware of Dana long before this recent flurry of interest, a lot of us have been left wondering where exactly this apparently fully-formed mature beauty has suddenly emerged from. So here's as much of the Dana Shemesh story as we know...
PART 1 - NATIONAL CHAMPION
We begin in Israel. All we know about Dana pre-2010 is that she "used to be a dancer", and somehow this led her towards Fitness (and comes in handy for her routines). She was the IFBB national champion in 2010, then nothing about her for a few years - maybe she took a break, maybe she was still competing - then in 2013, same championships, same winning result, but this time she's in the Figure class.
Now whether this is Fitness or Figure or even whether this is one of those national championships we don't know. Those heels could indicate either. What's confusing though is Dana seems to be wearing them while performing her routine!
PART 2 - INTERNATIONAL COMPETITOR
With her own "Ms Fitness Israel" personal training brand now well-established, in the autumn of 2014, Dana was in the US. She attended the Olympia, where she measured up very well against some of the more famous women at the Expo, got inspired by the Figure Olympians, and had a ball at the after show party "at the best club in Vegas".
She probably didn't overdo it that night, despite appearances to the contrary, because meeting, spectating, and partying were not her only concerns on this trip. She'd also come to compete - the first Israeli woman to do so in the NPC, she says.
The contest she had chosen was the Fort Lauderdale Cup, and so a couple of weeks after the Olympia, she tested herself outside of Israel for the first time. She won her class and placed 2nd in the over 30 Masters. It was amazing, she said, beaming with her trophies backstage. A big event with 220 competitors... and SURPRISE! I won!!!
Dana had plenty of experience behind her, but this was a whole new level and she knew it. She'd spent three weeks training with Debi Laszewski before the show, time during which she "learned so much". This was no novice coming to the US and getting lucky first time. This had been a well-planned smash-and-grab. Dana returned to Israel and found a little bit of celebrity status waiting for her, TV and other media keen to tell the story of an Israeli woman's international success. Especially the story of an Israeli woman with Dana's beauty and charisma. Now... How's your Hebrew?
2014 had been a very good year, but Dana had some new goals for 2015.
If you're thinking she doesn't look much very Figure in the above photo, you'd be right. Taken just a few months after her Fort Lauderdale success, Dana was "in transition". She - as so many of the women we feel compelled to feature here do - was moving up to Physique, and was packing on the muscle to achieve another Israeli female first.
And so, just five months after competing in Figure, Dana lined up at the Arnold Amateur, her first Physique contest. In the tall class, she failed to place, but was far from disappointed. I was extremely happy with the outcome because I was better than my last competition. I feel truly proud of myself what I've accomplished, she said afterwards. My class had 27 international competitors, and it was very exciting and challenging. To compete at the Arnolds, the first Israeli woman to do so, had been "a lifelong dream come true". She was looking ahead to her next competition.
PART 3 - LIFE AND THAT "NEXT COMPETITION"
And relocating. By the summer of 2015 Dana was based in New York, establishing her PT business there, while doing more and more photo shoots as a "fitness model". She married her long-time partner in Miami in 2016 (sorry to have to make you stop dreaming), and by the middle of 2017, they had settled down in Florida.
She looked good before, but she's starting to look absolutely sensational by this stage, and that's not just my opinion. Just glancing through some of your Hot and Hard 100 selections, I'm well aware that Dana's got more than a few votes - I may well be having to come up with even more words about her when we post the countdown soon! It's hardly surprising that by the end of the year she was blowing up the forums.
Having relocated, married, and relocated again, that "next competition" had obviously got shunted down the priority list a bit. Perhaps this was no bad thing. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of stories (none of which I can remember off the top of my head right now!) of women who had been successful in the early part of their career finding a move up in division or level leaves them in the hitherto unfamiliar land of lowly placings. So they go away from the stage for a couple of years, and put in the work. Then they come back bigger and better than ever, and the results follow.
If you noticed Dana was looking more and more shredded at the start of the year, there was a reason for that. That "next competition" she promised was now just weeks away.
She returned to the stage at the Topomania Classic in Miami this time last week. I suspect they put the WPD on just for her (what promoter wouldn't want her on next year's advertising?!) - the only other Physique competitor that day did rather better in her Figure class. Then again, Dana would have beaten a lot of amateur Physique women on this showing. It’s been 3 years since 2015 and the Arnold Classic, she reflected post-show. I didn’t compete for all kinds of reasons, but it feels good to be back!
It's good to have her... er, "back". Even if we didn't know she'd gone away.
Whatever she's gunning for next, she's already started putting the work in.
