Those averse to tattoos on their muscle ladies should come back tomorrow
In the early 2000s, "Latin Bomb" Vivianna Requena gained many plaudits from both the female muscle lovin' community and the wider bodybuilding world. What a package! exclaimed Curtis Schultz for Bodybuilding.com back in 2004. Exotic good looks, a striking muscle bod, and Latino charisma written all over her. Vivianna is a bona fide contender for a national level bodybuilding title and a pro card.
She was, at the time, winning titles as a Lightweight Bodybuilder - her Jr. USA class in 2002, the New Jersey Championships in 2003 - but was (and probably is still) best known to female muscle heads for her appearance in (and on the cover of) Muscle Elegance in April 2002. I love being a sex symbol! she said at the time. Transforming myself from a shy nerd to being on the cover of Muscle Elegance makes me feel like a Ms Olympia winner! I am very proud of what I have accomplished so far.
Soon after that Bodybuilding.com article in 2004 though, Vivianna completely disappeared off the radar. She'd just got engaged, but her husband-to-be then (and he's still her husband) was by no means averse to her muscles - they'd met at a show in Rhode Island - nor her penchant for letting us all get a look at her beautiful body in all its naked glory. He is very proud, she told Schultz. He likes to say that the only thing that the guys can do is look at me, but he has the real thing every night.
Well, Vivianna (McAuliffe since her wedding to that lucky - and level-headed - fella) is back. And once again, she is a bona fide contender for a national level title, this time in the Physique division. At the NPC Dennis James Classic in Mesa, Arizona on 26th May she won a two-woman WPD Physique class. It qualified her for a show where pro cards are dished out. Her next stop will be the North Americans at the end of August.
She'll be 50 by the time the North Americans roll around, and she's still chasing that pro dream. Still not shy about showing herself off either. I am a bodybuilder, she says. I want people to see that even with ripped hard muscles a woman can still be sexy and pretty - at the gym, on stage, or even while just at a party. Take a look at me!
Posts on her Instagram in the lead up to her show made their way onto the forums and had many in the female muscle lovin' community doing just that. Of course there was the usual nonsense - What are competition rules regarding tattoos? one hysteric wanted to know. How can a judge tell muscular definition from where they are sitting if a competitor has so many tattoos? The vast majority though were more impressed, and (along with the love from the wider community) Vivianna found herself reconnected with her noughties fan base again. Thank you all for your good luck wishes, messages and texts, she wrote the day before her contest. I’m overwhelmed.
After the show she took a well-earned holiday with her daughter, which pretty much clears up any questions you might have about what she's been doing all these years.
The woman who we once knew as the Latin Bomb is back then. More than a little more muscular than before as far as I can tell, and considerably more inked, but otherwise pretty much where she was before she became "a badass mom", ie. due that pro card. Someone asked 'What now,Viv?' she told her (growing ranks of) Instagram followers after her win. I said, 'Now it's time to train double beast for the North Americans!
Yikes! Can't wait to watch Vivianna going "double beast".
(As well as looking forward to more amusement courtesy of the anti-tat brigade!)
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
"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...
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.
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.
Congratulations to Maria and all the Figure phenoms in New York.
This photo has caused a bit of chat this week. Posted on "dessert shop owner" Erica Cordie's Instagram with an invitation to "caption this shot for me", on the one hand, Hello Hot Beef (good name!) on Tumblr reckoned that "Amazonian Queen Erica Cordie has reclaimed her throne with a single photo", while on the other, on the forum whose first rule is... this: Are we sure it's her and not someone else?
OK, fella, are you paying attention?
What you do is go to Erica's Instagram and find the post. Then, you look at the comments and see that she has credited the "awesome" @gwburnsphotography. Click on that link and you go to his Instagram. Find the photo there - you don't have to scroll down very far - and you see this: "The incredible physique of @erica.cordie".
Unless he's lying too...
Erica probably wishes she hadn't asked for the caption. Suggestions range from the illiterate: Your fucking sexy pls can I sex you baby. To the illiterater: I wonder get laid with you, maybe you broke my d**k! (Thank the Lord he starred out the middle of the dick word. It would have been so rude otherwise). To the illiteratest: When you say you're going midevil on her ass... and she come out like this. (So that's why Midevil European history was always a bit of a struggle for me - I was spelling it wrong).
As we saw yesterday, in 2016 Brazilians ruled the Arnold Amateur show in three of the four divisions without making much impression in the pro contest. A year later, and there may have been fewer Brazilian women on the amateur podium, but Brazilians could celebrate both the amateur Physique champion - Priscila Cavilha (above) - and a surprise new Ms Physique International - Daniely Castilho (below).
Following Juliana Malacarne's inaugural 2015 win, Daniely became the second Brazilian winner in the three years of the Physique International on her Arnold debut. With Juliana not bothering and Dani Reardon absent injured, the contest was pretty open I suppose, but there were few who expected a woman whose only previous pro outing had been to finish 5th in Puerto Rico the previous year to emerge victorious.
Still, a routine that Arnold himself decides is worth filming up close for his "personal collection" (talk about the perks of being the man) must be a routine with a chance of winning, and so it proved. And I don't think it's a bad thing if the Arnolds - for any of its "International" contests - throws up different winners to the Olympia. In 2017, this happened in three of the four divisions, and the show was more interesting for it.
YER MS INTERNATIONALS
Of course, the one division where no one expected or got a new champion was Fitness. Oksana was crowned for the fourth consecutive year - and possibly, it seems, for the last time. She's not on the competitor list currently available for this week's show, so the retirement announcement(s) she made last year should apparently be taken at face value, which makes this week's Fitness International a very hard contest to predict.
In Bikini, the 2016 runner-up Angelica Texeira, became the 2017 champion, and she went on to win her first Olympia title later in the year. And in a very high quality Figure line-up, the then reigning Ms Olympia Latorya Watts, rising star Cydney Gillon and the ever classy Candice Lewis-Carter were all in contention.
On this occasion, the judges were unanimous in giving it to Candice - (finally) Ms Figure International at her fifth attempt - with Cydney runner-up and Latorya in 3rd.
"The Freaky 3", as we like to call them here at FMS, would go heel-to-heel twice more over the course of 2017, soon after Columbus in Australia with Candice winning again, Latorya 2nd and Cydney 3rd; and ultimately at the Olympia, where Cydney won her first big title, Latorya 2nd and Candice 3rd. You'd be foolish to bet against the same top 3 again this week, though in what order is a much less easy call to make.
FIGURE PHENOMS
And while we're on the subject of Figure (now there's a sentence guaranteed to make a few of you exit the blog!), this may well have been the line-up that convinced FMS editorial that we should be paying a whole lot more attention to the division in general. Packed with gorgeous women with deliciously muscular physiques, it's incredible how far Figure has come since 2008 (our first post of this series) when you compare.
That is, of course, future Ms Figure International (and Olympia) Nicole Wilkins on the left, finishing 11th at the 2008 Arnolds - remember that back then there was also a "one-piece" round. On the right, Swann De La Rosa, 11th in 2017, not a "one-piece" in sight but plenty of ripped muscle. If only they'd let them flex just a little bit...
That would make dredging through the 600+ photos you can find at Eastlabs' gallery (of the amateur Figure classes and overall alone) even more exciting, though coming across gems like Argentina's Analía Galeano (3rd in her class, not the most balanced physique I grant you but what about those muscles at the top of her legs?!), or Donya Jackson from the USA (looking every inch a pro in the making), or Hungary's luciously leggy Eszter Urbán-Zsilák, or the Overall amateur winner Mou Cong - the first Arnold Amateur winner from China - makes it plenty exciting enough already.
PHYSIQUE DREAMS
But if Figure's not your thing, and even if you still pine for the days of the Ms International (let it go, would be my advice, it's gone, and let's face it you are probably not pining for the Iris-dominated last few years of the Ms International anyway), then perhaps a look back at the Physique International of 2017 is in order.
In a 30-woman field, it was a breakthrough show for runner-up Sheronica Henton, a sign of the stellar year to come for Arnold veteran Heather Grace, and Arnold debuts to remember from the shredded Tome Ameko, gorgeous Jacquita Person-Taylor, thick Margarita Zamalova, ever-smiling B Barnett and many more.
And as with some of the Figure galleries, I've had plenty of fun looking back at the pro Physique ladies doing their thing, and come to the conclusion that Brooke Walker may well feel the Arnold judges owe her a win. She won't be lining up this week, however, and neither will Daniely Castilho be defending her title as far as I can tell. Also absent are the two women who pushed Juliana at the Olympia - Heather Grace and Jennifer Taylor. So it's wide open again. Shanique Grant or Natalia Coelho to confirm the rise of the too-shredded-for-Figure phenom? Or will Kira Neuman come in with that top 3 Olympia package and take it? We will have hundreds of new images to trawl through (and know who won) by this time next week...
BRITISH INTEREST?
Yes, and very positive immigration stories they were. The "technically" British Geraldine Morgan was unplaced at the Physique International - our only pro on show, while previously Hungarian now approaching National Treasure status Katalin Jasztrab excelled in both her Open (3rd) and Masters (2nd) amateur Figure classes.
But it was burlesque performer by night, Fitness superstar by, er, evening, Kate Errington who produced the best, most patriotic performance of the whole weekend.
Kate became the second British woman to win a title at the Arnold Amateur when she won the Fitness class. Yes, she only had to beat two other women, but beat them she did. And Kate went on to do very well throughout 2017, so much so that this week she will be making her pro debut at the Fitness International, our only pro representative.
So that's that. 10 years at the Arnolds. Bodybuilding gone - even though it wasn't looking as unhealthy as perhaps those who plotted its downfall would have you believe. Physique on the rise - line-ups fantastic in number and quality, though it has to be said the amateur show has not been responsible for producing much of the pro talent we now see. And Figure transformed - less "one-piece", and more more muscle. Fitness is now an Adela-free and Oksana-free zone, so is currently genuinely up for grabs, while Bikini is... well, Bikini. This weekend the only place we'll see Bodybuilders is at the Expo. But there'll be muscle, and FMS will be on the trawl again...
Don't be that guy who didn't vote saying, "I can't believe [insert name of favourite FBB] is only at number [insert number greater than 2] on your list!" after the event.
