From NABBA to the Olympia

It would be easy to forget, given all the judging shenanigans and consequent outcry around the fate of Aleesha Young last weekend in Omaha, that as well as the big (but not too big, eh?) girls, the show boasted a quality Physique line-up too. Among the competitors there was Hot and Hard 100 perennial Zoa Linsey, who put in her usual classy showing; Roxanne Edwards' abs were their normal eye-popping selves; and the increasingly popular Katie Lee made her pro debut, placing 2nd.



The winner, though, was another pro debutant, considerably less heralded that Ms Lee and all the way from Perth, Australia. And while I'm sure our collective teeth will continue to gnash for some time yet at the way the placings went in the Bodybuilding class, we might take some small crumb of comfort from the fact that in Physique at least, first place went to absolutely the most shredded woman on the stage.




Lee-Anne Temnyk may be a name familiar to NABBA aficianados from her 2013 Worlds' appearance, where she won her Trained Figure class and posed down for the Overall title with fellow Aussie and eventual Overall winner Lisa Carrodus.



For her next big contest, however, Lee-Anne stepped away from NABBA and into the world of IFBB Physique. Last March in Melbourne she took first in an all-Australian line-up at the Arnold Amateur, as a result of which she was awarded her pro card.



She plumped for Omaha on the recommendation of Christine Envall, whose supplement company sponsors her, as the place to make her debut, and set about bringing her NABBA-style conditioning in for the show. One 35-hour journey (including transit and delays) later, and a winner's medal around her neck, Lee-Anne was telling Ann Titone it was "a dream come true". I still don't think it has sunk in yet, she says, in her super sexy super husky Aussie brogue. This is just amazing.



I'm very much a newcomer to the Lee-Anne party, but had I been following her Instagram as her pro debut approached, I wouldn't have needed much convincing that she would be a contender. Here was a woman who was bringing NABBA-style uber-conditioning to the IFBB Pro League. Truly she is amazing. As Ann says during the same NPC News Online interview, Lee-Anne's "striations had striations".




Not expecting to have secured her Olympia invite at her first attempt, Lee-Anne had already decided to do two shows while in the US (not really surprising given the 35 hours it took her to get there) so we'll be seeing more of the same this weekend at the Dallas Europa. It's just a shame she doesn't get to wear a thong anymore.



Enjoy!

Fantasy Friday

ON THE ISLAND OF THEMYSCIRA...



Who hasn't had the washed up on an island of Amazons dream?



Well, according to some sections of the media recently, we're all going to (sort of) have that dream come true if we go see Wonder Woman. The film's array of Amazon warriors, behind some of the most intense action sequences in the film, are no ordinary extras, Katie Fustich told us in The Daily Mail a few days ago. Rather, when it came time for director Patty Jenkins to select her cast, she opted to fill the island of Themyscira with real-life wrestlers, trainers, farmers, and even Olympic athletes.



And among them, the familiar face (and body) of Crossfit pin-up Brooke Ence, who plays Penthesilea. I got a call from Warner Bros. asking me if I would come in and read, she told The Huffington Post. I had no idea what it was for. It just seemed like a really great opportunity, and it literally just fell in my lap. I couldn’t say no.



The images of the Amazons in costume at their training camp on the Amalfi coast certainly brought all my teenage Amazon island fantasies rushing back, and not least those featuring the gorgeous Brooke. And her Huffington Post interview about her experience did nothing to curb my enthusiasm to see the film. It was a great realization of all the different types of strength. Everyone that was an Amazon just walked with more power. They walked with this Amazonian vibe.



It was really cool to see this whole training area, and there's not one male figure in sight, she continues. Women wrestling other women, kickboxing, doing pull-ups and practicing with spears... My fantasy's changing just a little bit - now I just want to have been there at the training camp! It sounds, and looks, a little bit like heaven!



Be warned though. The Amazon Army might not actually be in the film for quite as long as all this media attention suggests. Jenavieve Hatch, Huffington Post author, was, for one, as disappointed as any female muscle fan could be. For many viewers, she writes, Wonder Woman should have been set entirely on the women-only Amazon warrior paradise of Themyscira. It felt profoundly satisfying to watch women wield so much physical power on a humongous screen, and as the story went from Themyscira to World War I-era Western Europe, I found myself missing the women warriors...



And as for Brooke, well if you do part with your time and money and head to the local multiplex thinking you might sneak out after the Themyscira scenes, keep a close eye out for her. No one on the forums has reported actually spotting her on screen yet. Is Brooke in it much? asks one forum member. Not even for a second, comes the reply.

Guess we'll have to wait for the Director's Cut DVD.

Thanks to Crossfit correspondent Aiden for the heads-up.

Woman of the Week: Destinee Bruch

When the shirt you want is on sale but they only have smalls, but you have a medium upper body and a small waistline so you just get the small and show the guns - Bam!



Destinee Bruch (pronounced "Broo" as far as I know) pretty much passed the female muscle lovin' world by in her previous incarnation as a Figure competitor a couple of years ago, but with Instagram posts like the one above and a new Physique division body that's heading for the Jr. Nationals this weekend, she's really grabbed our collective attention now. Grabbed it by the throat. The tighter the sleeves, the weaker the knees! as one weak-kneed new member of the Destinee fan club puts it.



Once upon a time not so long ago, however, Destinee was neither Figure or Physique but, in her own words, "a train wreck of a girl". How long her transformation from two packs of hair extensions to six-pack and triceps extensions has taken I'm not completely sure, but she's "very glad to be the woman on the right - she's a beast!"



And this beast muscled her way into first place just over a month ago on her Physique debut at the NPC Mike Francois Classic in Ohio. And this was not one of those two competitors in a line-up, one of them looks like they know that you are supposed to diet and apply tan before a show pushovers. Destinee beat off much more experienced women like Tracy Smith, Michelle Grissom and Lisa Janusz (who has since been an NPC Physique winner herself) to claim the title and book her Jr. Nationals' berth.




And looks as though she enjoyed every second of it. Been here since 8 and I'm just now about to go up! It stinks that Women's Physique is always last... OK, so maybe not every second. But it's been a great show, so many awesome competitors. What an insane feeling being up there, truly life changing. I'm hungry for more.



And that's what we love to hear.



Now thus far I haven't said a damn thing about the tats, partly because so much has already been said. There's a very nice body hidden somewhere under that artwork, and so on. Well, I think if you really can't see Destinee's beautiful muscles because of the "artwork" then you should probably go to Specsavers. Or clean your screen. Or maybe you should just look at one of the other thousands of muscle women on the site where you left your comment and not bother with it next time. And besides, there's no hiding those epic shoulder curves no matter what she covers them with.



I have this insane dream, this dream to get my pro card, she says. My chance is just days away. It seems impossible but I'm going to give it everything I have.



She's going to run into (a previous WoW) Alyssa Kiessling in Chicago. Miss Buff Nugget (as Destinee calls herself) v. The Classical Queen. Print the poster now! More seriously, it's good to know, in a week where we've had a bit of a blow, that - in Women's Physique at least, the future remains bright and will continue to do so as long as there are young beasts like Destinee and Alyssa so committed to being better and bigger.



New fave, great build and beautiful, reads a comment I related to much much more than the twat's I quoted above. Spectacular! Just look at all those muscles!



Oh, I am. I AM!

Tube of the Week

THE LAST OF THE IRON SISTERS

The title, especially so soon after the events in Omaha last weekend, may look a little scary, but the second episode of Vice Sports' SWOLE series is an absolute treat.

We follow pro-bodybuilder Helle Trevino, says the blurb, as she prepares for the Rising Phoenix competition, and talk to 8-time Ms. Olympia Lenda Murray and the founders of Wings of Strength about how they're pushing to keep the sport alive.

The camera work is several professional cuts above the standard level of female muscle footage, but the groin-tingling backstage and on stage footage aside, it's the sight of Helle cooking her chicken, power-walking along Venice Beach, getting her nails done, and so on that appeals most to this fan of female muscle doing "normal" stuff.

Also starring the delivery boy you wish you were...



SWOLE - two episodes into its series - will hopefully feature more female muscle in the future, so keep an eye on the VICE Sports YouTube channel. VICE are the people responsible for the channel Viceland. I wonder if Helle will make it onto UK TV?

Enjoy!

Aleesha's Goodbye

OK, let's say I want to make a case for Aleesha not winning last weekend's Omaha Pro. Maria Mikola, who walked away with the first prize, is, as recently noted on the blog, most excellent, deserving of all the rewards the judges wish to give her, and she was as good if not better in Omaha than she had been finishing runner-up in Toronto.

But make a case for Aleesha finishing 7th? I think not.



When I first heard about the result I hadn't seen any pictures as yet, none of the contest at least. I'd seen Aleesha "drying out nicely", and made-up and "super nervous" on her Instagram, and I'd seen a check-in photo on NPC News Online. She looked amazing to me, but then what do I know? Something must have gone badly wrong for her, I reasoned. Maybe she hadn't dried out quite as much as she'd thought she had. Maybe the rest of the field really were good enough to have finished above her.

I waited for the contest pics to go up.



What I saw was mystifying. Aleesha was not just huge, but as close to her 2014 best as it was possible to be in terms of conditioning. It just didn't make sense. 7th?!

Perhaps in a line-up containing some of the greatest female bodybuilders of all time she might not have made the top 6. Perhaps in my very own Fantasy Contest this version of Aleesha might have finished 7th. But - and with the greatest respect to all the other competitors here (and as they stood on stage and listened to the announcement of the placings, they must have known) - not at this contest. It's just so obviously wrong.



Worse news was to come though.

Feedback from the judges, Aleesha revealed to her 71,000 Instagram followers soon after the result got out. "Lose 20lbs of muscle and you'll start placing higher..."



The female muscle lovin' community promptly hit the proverbial roof.

I had a feeling about this since it started, wrote one. Call this Ms O replacement what you like, it's still an IFBB event: their judges, their rules, their attitude towards BIG girls. If only the Woods could do without Jim [Manion, IFBB chief, and he really hates female muscle]! For various reasons, our brother continues, most righteously, the list of still training, no longer competing FBBs is growing, and the Rising Phoenix can't afford to lose class acts like Aleesha. Sadly, it increasingly seems that if you want to really do this sport properly and be appreciated for it, it's best not to enter contests.

Not IFBB contests anyway.



Unlike our insightful head, I have to admit I thought all this kind of thing had gone away. Seriously. Other than the odd bit of bleating about Sheila Bleck's win in Tampa and Rising Phoenix 2nd place last year, I can't recall a less controversial series of FBB contests than we have had since Wings of Strength took hold of the reins.

How wrong I was.



Worst of all, we may never see Aleesha on stage again.

"Lose 20lbs of muscle and you'll start placing higher..." Not gonna happen! Aleesha defiantly told her fans. Last time I checked this was bodybuilding not body starving. I'm just going to keep doing what I do and they are entitled to their opinion. I'm going to step away from the stage, but all you real muscle fans get ready and stay tuned because this girl is ready to grow and be the best version of herself.



Strip the sport of its stars, strip the competitors of muscle, and thus undermine those who quite obviously have the women's best interests at heart. The plan is so up front evil it's almost funny. But I don't see Aleesha, or any of Aleesha's multitude of fans laughing, nor any fan of pro Female Bodybuilding in general. How many more female muscle superstars like Aleesha can Wings of Strength let go before...?



There's rumours of a "deal" between the IFBB and Wings of Strength - weight divisions may be coming back. The IFBB wants to push the bigger Physique ladies into Light-heavyweight Bodybuilding, they say, and introduce a "maximum weight" for the Heavyweights (proportional to height, of course, they wouldn't discriminate...)

I can't say for certain if any of this is true, but it's believable, isn't it? I've always said that Female Bodybuilding needs its own federation. The women need to take control, and unless they do, the sport will always have to deal, to dance to the Devil's tune.



And of course it's the women who suffer the most.

Sympathy for all those women who, unlike Aleesha, don't have a partner or a successful business or a sufficient webcam following to support themselves. That increased prize money Wings of Strength now offer still looks tempting, but they are going to have to spend some time downsizing - after so many years of hard graft spent growing - before they stand a chance of getting a piece of that prize money pie.

Sympathy for Irene Andersen, so upset with the IFBB's destruction of her sport she made a feature-length documentary about it, and has been as active as any over the last few years. In great shape and fifth in Omaha. No one's talking about her.

Sympathy for Mmmmonique Jones. Last seen at an FBB contest flogging T-shirts in the foyer at the Rising Phoenix, not even pretending any longer that she'll stand on stage again despite being one of the most genetically-gifted FBBs of her generation.

And sympathy for Aleesha, who to her credit has dealt with all this with a lot of class. Injury, illness, family... so many reasons for her not to have competed again. And yet she did. She came back, bigger and better, for the love of muscle and the sport, only to find the sport - or rather those who control the sport - had no love for her.

Email to paste into the IFBB Pro League contact page.

To Mr Jim Manion, IFBB Pro League President:
Sir, after a weekend on which another fine Female Bodybuilder has decided to quit the sport, I ask you to stop your systematic destruction of Female Bodybuilding. You've done enough now. As a fan of Female Bodybuilding, I appeal to you to let Wings of Strength run it, and let the women be as big as they want to be.
I fail to see why any decent person would want to prevent that.
Yours,
etc. etc.

Do it now. Do it here.

Imagebam Down: The Look of FMS

Dear User,

We’d like to inform you that we will be shutting down services on June 30th, 2017. Please download and backup your files before this date.

Sincerely,
The Team

If you didn't already know that Imagebam (along with some other file hosts) is about to go the way of Theresa May's majority, you do now. And there's no special reason why you should care. But I do, because - at a conservative estimate - about 90% of all the images ever on FMS have been uploaded using that. Ergo about 90% (at a conservative estimate) of the images on FMS are about to disappear. Forever. Just like that.

Now, again, you may not care, you may read this for the razor sharp prose and find many of the images something of a distraction. If you do rather like the images and perhaps wish you had downloaded a few more over the months and years you've been following (he said hopefully) then my news for you is that I am, at some point, going to start reuploading the images zipped in reverse order (the latest are easiest to find).

Look out for a new page - haven't decided what to call it yet - soon after June 30th. That'll be it. And meanwhile, enjoy FMS the way it looks now, in full colour.

For a (very) limited time only.