As I have been reporting all through the year, the IFBB women's judging "guidelines" adopted this year by the NPC have been playing havoc with the outcome of competitions. There are those in the NPC who have resented my pointing this out on the Internet, but I have not done so with any intention of undermining the federation. Nor do I think NPC officials and judges have any malicious intent in applying these non-bodybuilding criteria to amateur bodybuilding contests. But I do think they are wrong to do so. And what happened at the USA should be enough to convince anyone.

Actually, most of the judging was pretty accurate - accepting that some people are going to object no matter what the judges decide. Mary Ellen Doss won the lightweight class without any adverse reaction from the audience. The middleweight winner was Jennifer McVicar, who was a very neat package indeed - not a lot of muscle, but in good shape and very aesthetic. I was somewhat suprised when Dawn Riehl, who looked very depleted, beat out Becky Rampey for second. Becky showed a lot of full, shapely muscle and was far more proportionate and aesthetic. She was very confused later when a judge told her she was not hard enough, considering that the judges have been complaining that female bodybuilders were becoming too hard. However, it doesn't seem that the new guidelines played any particular part in this outcome.

But this was not the case with the heavyweights. The judging in that class seems very questionable. Laura Ottenad won the class, and there is no doubt that she deserved to be in the top two or three. But the real standout in the heavyweights was Debi Laszewski (pronounced: "la..chev...ski"). Debi looked like a pro. She was hard, lean and shapely. Even with lots of dense, full muscle she sill looked lean and symmetrical. If she had placed 2nd in the class it would have been less than she deserved, but it would have been easy to chalk that up simply to how that group of judges happened to see that class that day. One of those things. But Debi placed 7th - and that decision seems to have been political rather than based on actual judging criteria.

In fact, I spoke to one of the judges after the contest and asked about this. (I won't name names here, but I do appreciate the honesty of the judge's response - as I said, these are not bad guys, just people trying to do the wrong thing.) Why did Debi place so low? I asked. "Because she was too muscular," the judge replied. Too muscular according to what standard...the guidelines? "Yes," admitted the judge. Okay, I continued, if there were no guidelines and you were just judging the contest as a bodybuilding competition, how would you have placed her? "Oh," replied the judge, "I would have given her the show."

That tells it all. This experienced judge would have picked Debi, not just to win her class, but to win the overall as well. So think about it - if the best bodybuilder in the show is placed 7th in her class because of these IFBB-imposed guidelines, aren't the guidelines just WRONG? And if you are telling the judges, in effect, not to vote for the best bodybuilder to win, can you still claim to be holding a bodybuilding contest?

The imposition of an arbitrary, politically-motivated set of guidelines on a female bodybuilding contest is not only wrong, it is probably illegal as well. It constitutes gender descrimination, since similar guidelines are not used in judging male bodybuilders. There is no major sport in the world that allows this kind of descrimination. It is against the policies of the International Olympic Committee. It such a thing occured in women's tennis, basketball or golf it would become an international scandal.

Thankfully, the guidelines seemed to rear their ugly head only in the heavyweight class at the USA 2000. Let's hope the NPC reconsiders its judging policies and avoids this kind of descriminatory activity in the future. The NPC is really a fine organization and seems to have real concern about the welfare and well-being of amateur bodybuilding competitors. The sooner it dumps these inappropriate guidelines the better for all concerned.