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.
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.
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.
