FITNESS CONTEST REPORT

By Bill Dobbins

Regular readers of my reports will already know that I don't have a clue as to how fitness is scored or even should be scored - and I don't think the judges or NPC/IFBB officials do either. So my reports are usuall less about who won and why but more often are commentary on how contradictory and confusing the contests tend to be.

In terms of the outcome of the contest, Kelly Ryan won the Jan Tana Fitness Classic. Kelly winning a show makes more sense than many of the other champions the judges select. She is a Bela Karolyi trained gymnast, which gives her a tremendous advantage in a type of competition which gives gymnastic training such way too much emphasis. Kelly has also developed a very impressive degree of muscular development over the past few years. Kelly is also very promotable, so given her other attributes it is not a bad idea to have her win fitness contests. But you have to wonder if the judges were thinking along these lines when they were scoring the contest.

Take the first call out round - the women in two-piece suits being judged "standing relaxed" (they don't do it correctly here any more than they do in bodybuilding, and the head judge only seemed to be making half-hearted attempts to inforce the rules). I didn't keep exact notes but something like the first 6 out of 8 call outs for 7 out of 10 (you get the idea) involved Alti Batista. Now, there is nothing at all wrong with Alti Batista - but how exactly did virtually ALL the judges somehow intuitively decide as a group that she was the one to beat in the two-piece physique round? Mental telepathy? Osmosis?

Alti ended up with a "6" in this round, which means almost all first place votes. But on what basis? After all, standing on stage you also had Alexandra Kobielak and Beth Horn. You had Tracey Greenwood and Cynthia Bridges. What caused everyone to focus on Alti? Is it because she is the same physical type as Susie Curry? Since Susie has won so many events, have the judges simply decided that anyone who looks like Susie should win the physique round? But that wouldn't explain how the IFBB somehow decided to pick Susie over a Timea Majorova or Stacy Simons in the first place. Again, not that a judge SHOULDN'T pick Alti or Susie...but why do they all develop a "group think" that makes these women such overwhelming choices? Inquiring minds want to know, but so far no explanation is on the horizon.

By the way, watching these fitness contests one thing becomes clear - the more athletic, muscular women tend to win the two-piece round, while those with good figures but less muscle (especially abs) usually do better in the one-piece. This tells you that the one-piece suits "covers up" a lot of faults - at least in terms of muscular development or lack of it. But when you are holding a contest that is supposedly about having an athletetic good body, do you really want to cover up the muscle and give those who are less athletic athletically developed an advatage? Inquiring minds have never gotten an answer to this one, either.

As to the round in the black "cat suits," that's a great time to go out to the rest room or get a drink of water. Evidentally, somebody decided, "Hey, lets take all these great bodies and totally cover them up with black suits! That will give the judges fits!" Great sense of humor, the IFBB.

The performance round was a lot like you might expect. Terrific gymnasts like Kelly Ryan put on a show worth paying to see. Actually, Kelly has put together a routine that is as entertaining as it is gymnastically impressive. When you see other gymnasts on stage you can see the difference. Most usually lack the "show business" excellence Kelly can achieve. But a few others have gotten their acts together, so to speak, as well.

But if you can't do tumbling and other gymanstic moves, you can't expect to score well in this round. Fitness has always put way too much emphasis on gymnastics ability - something you need to train for from the age of 5, and have an adult body that still has some of the strength-to-weight advantages you had as a teenager. Mature figures need not apply. That's why Debi Lee Stern, not only a gymnast but a gymnastics teacher, is now judging rather than competing. She is just too big and tall to tumble around the stage the way she did at age 16. So the current way of judging fitness tends to produce winners who look more like little girls than adult women. Is this done on purpose? Unlikely. Nothing about the way fitness is judged shows any sign of deliberate purpose.

Entertaining as the routines are - and, as I said, some of them are REALLY entertaining - they are nontheless dangerous and it is only a matter of time until disaster strikes. Young gymnasts working out on mats under the direct supervision of coaches get hurt. But in fitness you have older women, many without a deep gymnastics background, some with long standing chronic physical problems from their gymnastics history, doing tumbling and other difficult moves on a wooden stage that might well be slippery with oil. Two women got hurt at the Jan Tana. Laura Mak had to withdraw when she injured her ankle. Kelly Ryan reported hurt her hamstring, which hopefully will be healed by the Ms. Olympia. But we keep hearing about women falling on their heads or necks when practicing and there have been a number of broken bones. How long until we witness somebody badly hurt doing a routine in an IFBB or NPC fitness contest?

Whatever legal protection the federations think they have, imagine a little fitness girl in a neck brace and wheelchair being wheeled into a courtroom in front of the judges. "But she signed this piece of paper..." is not going to be much of a defense.

Anyway, the problemmatic nature of fitness aside, the vast majority of these women are really attractive, with nice "little bodybuilding" muscle and it is a pleasure to watch and photograph them. As I've said before, they are more impressive close up, where you can see the development and definition of their physiques. Unfortunately, if you are out in the audience some distance away you can't really see now nice their physique are. You lose the detail. Oh, well...that's what photographs are for and I do my best to get a lot of backstage and warm up photos into my reports.