A Temporary Halt

New pro Dana Shemesh, tbc

Sad to say that for a while at least FMS is not going to be posting anything new.

Some real life stuff is going on that absolutely requires my full attention, and unfortunately that is going to have to take precedence. With luck, it won't be too long before FMS returns, but at the moment it's impossible to say when that will be.


2 x Ms Figure Olympia, Cydney Gillon

You might, as they are (sort of) just in, want to check out the Olympia results and galleries on NPC News Online at some stage this week - I know I will! FMS fave Cydney Gillon has defended her Figure title, and in Juliana's absence, Shanique Grant has fulfilled her destiny. UK fans can enjoy Louise Rogers (finally at the Olympia) in Figure, plus our two Fitness Olympians, Emma Paveley and Kate Errington.


Shanique Grant - (the new) Ultimate Physique

And why not check out the archive?

Over 7 years of the finest contemporary female muscle plus the occasional look back at female muscle times past. And since Saturday, 8th September 2012 (with the odd break here and there) we've endeavoured to bring you a post a day, and we started that week, appropriately enough, with seven posts devoted to... ALINA POPA!


Our first, and (almost) our last (for now)

Sadly, not all the images from the last 7 years are still up there, but my musings - inane, insane and very occasionally insightful (if I say so myself) - are 100% intact.


Dani 2014: visible ecstasy on stage in Orlando

I'm rather proud (whether rightly or wrongly) of the week that began with Dani Reardon getting "the chills" at the Orlando Pro in 2014; of the seven-part piece of fiction that makes up Prof. Pennypacker's Pectarium; and last year's Never Better.


Sarah and Simone, at their peak

I've LOVED reporting on the big pro and amateur shows, and the best of British female muscle. I've also LOVED choosing FMS' Women of the Year, and - with your very great help - compiling five lists of alternative female beauty - the Hot and Hard 100.


The Hottest Hard Woman in the World 2017-2018

I'll still be about on the forums, in the chatrooms, on Skype, on Discord, MyCircle, and Tumblr - look out for 6ft1swell (or similar) and say hi - or steer well clear, it's up to you!



Some highlights from 6ft1swell's Tumblr so far this year

I look forward to resurrecting FMS (hopefully) in the not-too-distant future.

Thank you for reading.

The Year in Review: October

THE OLYMPIA(S)




Our Olympia review began (a little tardily, I admit) with a reminder that these days there isn't A Ms Olympia, but four. The Ms Olympia was last held in 2014, and since then we've had four Ms Olympias each year and yet no [one with the actual title of] Ms Olympia. And the four from 2017 - two new, two recrowned were: Oksana Grishina (Ms Fitness Olympia), Cydney Gillon (Ms Figure Olympia), Angelica Teixeira (Ms Bikini Olympia), and Juliana Malacarne (Ms Physique Olympia).

And then there was Natalia...



It is indeed scary to think how excited I might be getting looking at Natalia three years down the road. My ticker barely made it through her Olympia appearance this year. I really should schedule a check-up, but you know, it's finding the time to do it...



Britain's Emma Paveley took full advantage of her first Olympia experience, keeping the party going long after she had taken her place on stage among her sport's elite.




And we confessed to enjoying the Physique Olympia so much we ended up actually sympathising with the judges. Fact is, there were 26 amazing women on that stage, and it can't have been an easy job choosing between such a magnificently muscled line-up. You have to go on something, and if that something is "she looks to have made improvements from what I remember from her last year", then there's not much we can do about it. Relax. Enjoy the muscle. There's plenty of it.



We did reserve a special mention for our favourite Physique swoon though, especially given the pasting some forum twazzock had given here earlier in the year: Well, I think it's safe to say this opinionated forum member's nice little half-baked Dani demise theory (posted mid-August) hasn't exactly turned out to be 100% accurate. He's clearly not a Dani fan, whereas I'm proud to say I am. Anytime Dani's got a posing suit on I'm happy, and given the doom-laden predictions (our forum posting friend offered one of many) I was very pleasantly surprised to see she'd lost none of her sparkle and that bod is as spectacular as ever. Love the hair too! I could thank him for making my expectations so low I couldn't possibly have been disappointed by Dani's package, but that would suggest I had paid his fantasy theory some mind. I didn't.

[you so obviously did - ed.]



Collectively though, there was general agreement on the one debut Physique Olympian who should have placed much much higher - Jill Diorio. And those calves of hers.



She was in the sort of condition where even her cheeks looked ripped. "At the Olympia she looked SICK!" a forum poster noted, "Too cut for the judges, but I LOVE IT!" He was not alone. She was, we collectively decided, "exceptional", "flawless", "breath-taking". Her back double biceps in particular got the boys' attention. "Rock hard, symmetrical, big and sexy!" wrote one fan. "One of the best physiques I've ever seen."

BARCELONA

Events came thick and fast in October. We'd barely got our breath back after Jill and those calves before we were swooning all over the place for some of Europe's best amateur talent, with our focus at the start of the week on the British contingent.



We have a new champion. Rising British Bodyfitness star Danielle "Dani" Osborn won her "up to 168cm" class, and though following in the footsteps of Carly Thornton ("short" Physique, 2015) and Emma Paveley ("short" Fitness, 2016), she's the very first British Bodyfitness athlete to be a class winner there.

And there was Linda Gartside. Always a pleasure.



2017: The girl who was once too embarrassed to join a gym and instead worked out with dumbbells in her garage as Arnold looked on from the cover of his book is about to go on stage at his event and perform under his banner. Her "soul dream", she calls it, is about to come true. She's 47. And (once again) happy in her own skin. "Linny had been lost for some time," says Rochdale's finest, "the Arnold Classic Europe was where I found "me" again. The moment I gave up the chase for winning, I regained my inner freedom, and found my happiness. I have found the "me" that I lost."

It wasn't all about the Brits though.



Spanish champ and Overall Physique winner Laura Pintado and "the big and beautiful Czech dream" Alena Hatvani gave us plenty to swoon over.

As did Hevumisa.



Check out Part I here.

"THE NERD BEAST"

A brief pause in contest reporting for this year's breakthrough swoon.



Paige is suddenly everywhere, "The Female Hercules" (with girl-next-door looks), she reminds of Monica Mollica, Lauren Quinn, and (no higher praise, surely) Heather Policky "only hotter" (?!). She's "The Nerd Beast", and "the female muscle find of the year". Where did she come from? I think I'm in love. So, that's you, me, and just about every other head who's been turned on to Paige so far - 8,000+ IG followers and I'm guessing they are not all budding WPD competitors.

CZECH IN AT THE BRITISH CHAMPIONSHIPS




Absolutely unprecedented, and most welcome - FMS' favourite female muscle contest lensman, Eastlabs' Igor Kopcek, was at the recent UKBFF British Championships doing what he does so well. For once, I am able to put together a report on the show where my problem is not where to find images without big f*** off watermarks saying DO NOT F***ING COPY all over them, but how to choose which of the 2,799(!) images of the female classes to include. I've been in heaven for the last few hours, and I don't mind admitting it. Mr Kopcek, I doff my chapeau to you, sir!



The judges chose a pretty exciting champ too!

FANCY A DATE?



Any excuse to post gorgeous muscle women like Victoria Puentes in their little black dresses, but this time it was a website promising "Female Bodybuilder Dating" and the advice of a forum bod who'd loved (and lost) three different muscle women that got us righteously indignant. Don't seek their help, don't follow his advice - he lost them, remember? Go to a gym. Trust me, it's where they are. They'll admit it, too.

TALES OF THE TOWEL



And we finished October and entered November with, depending on who you believe, an inspired addition to the collection of female muscle niches we have collated over the years, or a new low for a blog that's hardly had its most a stellar of years.

[dude! you've got to start letting these things lie - ed.]

Olympia 2017: Jill Diorio

I may have gone a bit over the top yesterday when describing Jill Diorio as "the most muscular woman in the contest". But if she wasn't, she was certainly the most freaky; the most, we might say, "FBB-like". Or perhaps not. Some FBBs don't even look that good, wrote one forum poster after the Olympia. She is mind blowing! Freaky goes a lot further with the fans than the judges, you see, and Jill's freakery has made her the Olympia sensation among the brethren, the female muscle people's choice if you like. Seriously, she got robbed, adds our poster, articulating an opinion shared by many.



We've met Jill previously on FMS, Jill and her calves, her calves that she doesn't train "that much". Back then in May she had just made her IFBB pro Physique debut in St. Louis, which was a couple of months before she won the Puerto Rico Pro to qualify for the Olympia. We noted how she was quite a lot more than just the sum of her freakish calves, and how she'd taken breaks between contests before and come back after each of them "exponentially better". Her physique at the Olympia was once again a huge improvement on her Puerto Rico package. Those in the Diorio-know were salivating before she took to the stage. Those who weren't were given a right royal treat.



She was in the sort of condition where even her cheeks looked ripped. At the Olympia she looked SICK! another forum poster noted, Too cut for the judges, but I LOVE IT!




He was not alone.

She was, we collectively decided, "exceptional", "flawless", "breathtaking". Her back double biceps in particular got the boys' attention. Rock hard, symmetrical, big and sexy! wrote one fan, new at the Diorio party. One of the best physiques I've ever seen.



It's hard to disagree, or to say anything negative about Jill's 2017 Olympia package, even when you take off your female muscle lust goggles and try to be objective...



OK, she's not got the most balanced physique because her lower body is SO ridiculously good, and she doesn't look quite as good from the front as she does from the back, but that back is SO perfect... So what were the judges doing "insulting" her with no place at all in the top 15? She should switch to Bodybuilding, noted one forum poster. If she keeps turning up looking bigger and bigger and more and more ripped every time, he may well have a point. Her pal and former Physique co-competitor Hanna Hallman's done it and is happy as hell that she did. Why shouldn't Jill?



So we seem to have arrived at one of those collective intakes of breath, like when we didn't know if Shannon was going to carry on being an FBB or "downsize" to Physique. Will we see Jill less ripped and less freaky, attempting to curry favour with those pesky IFBB judges? Or will we see her next year hitting that back double biceps on full power, closed fists and everything! And probably doing a lot better than Hanna as a Bodybuilder, no disrespect, but Jill could do very well at early season shows like Toronto methinks. Who knows? She might even start training her calves a bit more.



Yikes!