2016 Review: September

The first part of September was taken up almost exclusively with the Rising Phoenix and the Arizona Pro - Bikini, Fitness, Figure and Physique making it a five-division feast of muscle in all its forms. First though, we previewed the FBBs who would compete at RP2016, though we don't need to go back there and check out my predictions.

Before our review of the show, however, we felt obliged to weigh in to the Wings of Strength v Iris Kyle controversy that had blown up across the wider muscle media.



Our conclusion? Well, if Iris isn't there, so what?

The people who single-handedly pulled pro female bodybuilding back from the abyss in 2015 and have nurtured a small but significant expansion in 2016 decided they didn't want the champion who retired from the sport at the very moment when it had no future, and who decided she wasn't so retired after all only after she had witnessed Margie Martin last year pick up the kind of prize pot it had taken her years to accumulate under the previous regime. Is it, is it really such a "damn shame"?

All with the greatest respect to Iris, of course.

The Arizona Pro



We couldn't ignore the ladies who had come out in support of Wings of Strength in the other divisions, and to a greater or lesser extent saw a piece of each one. Fit and fabulous mothers Deborah Goodman (Bikini) and Carly Starling-Horrell (Figure) (above), and Italian Fitness winner Giorgia Fironi (you know she's a winner 'cos she's got a big shield) all featured in our cross division celebration Five Women.



Also in that post was B (yes, it's just "B") Barnett from a Physique division that made up for what it lacked in top level competitors (the Physique Olympia took place the following week) with the kind of joyous on stage performances that B epitomised.



But I guess the big news from the Physique contest was the return of Thai muscle goddess Penpraghai Tiangkgok. And she was back with added muscle on that perfect frame, so it was no surprise when she picked up a shield of her own as the Arizona Pro Physique winner. Congratulations Penpraghai! I wrote (as if she would be reading). I'm very happy you're back, and I hope you're back for good.



With her track record, don't count on it!

The Rising Phoenix 2016

The Phoenix most definitely rose.




There were posing suits that could barely contain the excitement of the competitors. Helle Trevino brought so much damn meat onto the stage this viewer was utterly overwhelmed. Some competitors didn't have such good days placings-wise, others exceeded their expectations and had their day in the proverbial sun. Sheila Bleck followed up her Tampa win by finishing runner-up (of course, controversially), and Alina returned to competition and didn't - as many expected - carry all before her.




Ultimately, no one could touch the reigning Queen. There were no complaints.

Well, very few anyway.



I certainly wasn't complaining.

Gosh she makes me swoon. All that beautiful BEEF! The way her massive, rippling quads bulge outwards; the thickness and definition across her back; that hamstring drop (see how I'm learning the lingo!) curved like a mighty bow (and adding a bit of lyrical panache all of my own!) about to unleash its firepower...




It didn't seem possible, but she looked even bigger and better in the evening in her fiery posing suit - I felt like a Rising Phoenix, she said. As always, she seems to have gone all out for the finals, leaving none of her sass back in the hotel. I haven't seen any video of her routine as yet, but I'm 100% sure that when I do, I'm going to be watching it more than once. She looks so fierce and powerful, and yet, so feminine.




Exactly how I want my champ to be.

So there, it was all over for another year, the IFBB pro Female Bodybuilding season had reached its climax in Scottsdale, Arizona, and what a great climax it had been.

No rest for FMS though.

We turned our attention to the Physique division, and the Physique Olympia.

Physique Dreams



It's perhaps best to gloss over the fact that for a while in 2016 Theresa Ivancik (or someone close to her) was convinced she stood a better chance of gaining her long-cherished pro card by competing in the Physique division. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work out. I was a smidgen too big, she reckoned. Yeah. "A smidgen". Right.



More appropriate physiques were quickly sought and found in the shape of (yet another) Brazilian muscle goddess - Gilberia Cunha - and the UK's own new sensation Charlene Harvey, who along with Corinne Ingman, we highlighted as British WPD dreams to watch. By her own admission Charlene can't walk past a mirror while she's in contest shape without stopping to flex and record the moment, which pretty much sums up Corinne's MO when she's "truly, disgustingly, peeled" as well.

Then, we whetted our collective appetites for the mega-post that was to come from the Physique Olympia with three interviews with women who very much hoped to be doing more than hanging out at the Expo this time next year. Most appetite whetting of all, I reckon, was Jen Louwagie and her upper body in that vest. SWOON!!!



The 2016 Physique Olympians




Wow this post goes on. Really. I could have got a week out of this material. "The cream of the Women's Physique Division", beautifully photographed by Igor Kopcek. If ever I needed an editor! The Olympia may have lost a few female muscle fans since 2014, I reckoned at the time, but for those lucky enough to attend I dare say that the problem was not so much where to find the muscle as how to hide the tentpole.

In my defence, the tone rose significantly after that opening paragraph.




Covering, as it does, the considerable gap between the outer limits of Figure and the cusp of Heavyweight Bodybuilding, the WPD at the 2016 Olympia saw many of FMS' personal and reader favourites doing battle in Las Vegas. And having them all in top shape in one post only serves to underline the incredible muscular sex appeal of these women to me. Erica, Asha, Dani, Jamie, and many many more. Incredible, and incredible-looking, women from the bottom to the top of the placings, and I think I managed to include at least one picture of every single one of them in the post.



Special mention, though, had to be reserved for Rosanna Harte - the first British woman ever to compete at the Physique Olympia (she placed a creditable 12th), and of course, the champion again, Juliana Malacarne, unbeaten in her last six contests now, and for the third time in a row, crowned Ms Physique Olympia.

And our week of Physique wasn't even finished yet!

See how it spilled over into October like big pecs in an ill-fitting posing suit, plus what we got up to for the rest of that month tomorrow as FMS' 2016 review continues...

On Fandom: Chapter 6

A fan of the sport?



As a fan, I know that Wings of Strength "launched" the 2017 pro female bodybuilding season recently. They announced the same line-up of pro shows as 2016, plus the new open amateur contest, the Ms Wings International, which will take place the day before the Chicago Pro at the same venue, and give the winner the chance to make (I imagine) the fastest pro debut in history the very next day. Once again, the season will reach its climax in Scottsdale, Arizona at the Rising Phoenix. Lots to look forward to.



However, I also know that Margie Martin won't be defending her title there. Fortunately I’m in a position where I feel like female bodybuilding is going to last beyond me competing, she said recently in an interview with Anomaly Athletics. What I want to do is to make new female bodybuilders and to recruit - even if I have to train them myself! Well if they all turn out like her protégé Brittney O'Veal, I for one won't be complaining. And Margie also took a swing at Iris Kyle. I felt confused about why Iris was making such a hoopla, she said. After competing for a while, you should use it as a platform to elevate yourself into a position where you don’t need the prize money or the adulation. Ouch! She's not saying never again though, just not next year. Those mighty quads may yet thunder across the stage again.



And I know that Greek Goddess Anastasia Papoutsaki became IFBB Mediterranean Physique champion in Lisbon recently. And that those ex-sprinter legs of hers are finally starting to realise their full potential. And that her next stop will be the IFBB Diamond Cup in Athens this weekend and that there's a pro card on offer. As always when she's competing, I will be eagerly waiting for news of her placing.



I do this kind of thing a lot. If one of my favourite muscle women is taking the stage somewhere, I make it a priority to know how she's done as soon as I can. I can get particularly excitable when a Brit takes the stage in one of the US pro shows, or a whole bunch of British female muscle takes part in one of the big amateur shows like the Arnold Europe or the NABBA Worlds or NABBA Universe. I don't know if this makes me a "fan", but it certainly feels like it does. I certainly felt like a fan when Corinne Ingman - who time and again I have reported as having got no love at all from the judges at shows organised by a whole range of federations - finally had her day in the sun at the WFF Worlds recently. Her title? Ms Super Body. How very very apt.



This fascination, perhaps obsession, with contests doesn't mean I'm under any illusions about female muscle "sport". The subjective, and often bizarre judging; the almost total lack of drama beyond the first callout; the seemingly ever-decreasing importance of the performance aspect of routines etc. etc. There's so much that's wrong about it.



A win and a pro card at the amateur shows is by no means a passport to stardom and riches, but it's important to so many of the women to be able to say they are a pro, to be able to compete with the best of their peers. Outside the NPC and North America the women generally have far less opportunity to join the pro ranks. And yet compete they do, going through the rigours of contest prep, driven perhaps by the sheer joy of competing, by the camaraderie of their sisters of iron, or by the challenge, or the love of the sport, or by all of the above or none. This is the moment the women train for, perhaps - however amazing I or any of their myriad fans, think they look on a daily basis - the one and only time they feel truly happy with their physiques.



It was all very different in the past. In the Magazine Years, when I first felt the attraction of female muscle, contest news was weeks, perhaps months, old. I appreciated the pictures of Cory, Anja et al on stage, of course I did, but I didn't have that anticiaption for the results like I do now because it all seemed so remote. Thanks to social media (a much more immediate source of news than the federations' websites or the sites with big contest galleries, by the way) I can learn, for example, that Anastasia has won as soon as she's got backstage and taken her phone out.



What hasn't changed though is that I rarely actually witness any of the shows, either in person or (these days) on a live feed. Almost never. Yes, I watch clips if and when they are posted days or weeks later, but by then I know the outcome and it's simply not as exciting. Finding out moments after the event via Instagram that Theresa Ivancik (who we have followed on the blog for years as she's tried again and again to win a national show and become a pro) had finally won her class at the NPC Nationals last weekend was infinitely more exciting than watching her win in this clip days later.



Perhaps I'm not really a fan of the sport then, even though I follow it closely, but a fan of the competitors. A woman who never competes can, like Cass Martin who I was swooning all over the other day, interest me, but she doesn't take me on the same journey that Margie, or Anastasia, or Corinne, or Theresa have taken me. As I follow them going through what they have to go through, I emotionally engage. If they want to win, I want them to win. And I celebrate (inwardly, secretly) when they do.




And judging by the reaction to Theresa's good news in the messages on her Instagram and on the fan forums, I'm not the only one who has these feelings. Are we, to return to some of Marcie Simmons thoughts thoughts earlier in the week, "supporting" her? Are we "helping her grow as a brand"? Probably not. But it must be nice for her to get those messages of congratulations, to - perhaps - read those happy posts on a clandestine visit to "Schmoeville". Perhaps even (be still my burning heart!) she has enjoyed one of the (many) tributes we have put together for her here on FMS.



It must be nice for Theresa to know she has fans. A lot of fans. And though they might not be in the audience, or "support her financially", or even send her some words of encouragement every now and then, they are, in a sense, with her on her journey.

to be continued...