THE FEMALE PHYSIQUE WEBZINE/GALLERY
BODYBUILDING COMPETITION REPORT
Introduction
For the past several years we have
been hearing from physique magazines and federation officials that “women’s
bodybuilding is dying.” But in fact this doesn’t seem
to be the case. You certainly wouldn’t think so based on the
line-up at the 2002 USA or Nationals, where bodybuilding competitors considerably
outnumbered those for fitness in both contests.
In fact, amazingly enough there were so many women entered in Nationals bodybuilding that elimination rounds were necessary for all three classes!
There are two reasons for this. For one, there always has been an
audience for female bodybuilding and a lot of women who wanted to compete
in bodybuilding contests. However, the huge amount of negative feedback
being generated by certain bodybuilding publications plus effort made by
important federation officials to discourage women from going to what they
called “extremes” has certainly slowed if not stopped the development
of the sport. However, this anti-female muscle effort has somewhat
diminished lately. The Internet has had a lot to do with this, since
fans of muscular women have had an opportunity to support female bodybuilders
and bodybuilding in a way that would not have been possible if the print
magazines had been their only source of photos and information.
Ironically, the NPC decided that no press passes would be issued in Dallas
to representatives of websites – most of which focus on the women
rather than the men. Aside from the fact that this ignores the reality
of 21st century communications – the Web gives you news
and information about contests almost immediately, rather than forcing fans
to wait months to see photos and get the details about competition –
it limits the amount of coverage of the women since print magazines give
them so little attention and the Web is often the only means
by which those who follow the women can get access to contest coverage.
Another reason why female bodybuilding is, at least temporarily, growing
in popularity is the gradual wearing away and withering of the IFBB/NPC
“guidelines” of a few years ago which were apparently designed
to “soften” the women and make them more palatable to the International
Olympic Committee. This has happened in part because the rejection
of bodybuilding as an Olympic sport by the IOC seems irrevocable –
at least for the foreseeable future – and artificial, politically
motivated rules like this tend to be ignored over time anyway by judges
who, for the most part, know how to score a bodybuilding contest and left
to themselves will go with their own perceptions rather than a set of rules
handed down from Montreal.
Certainly, the success of the 2002
Ms. Olympia, which included the return to competition of Lenda Murray,
had a very positive effect on bodybuilding for women. With a line-up
of women that big and muscular, plus that aesthetic, even many long-time
critics of the sport had to admit that it was clearly headed in the right
direction.
The Competition
NPC women’s bodybuilding is conducted using three weight classes.
IFBB pro events usually have only two classes (they can have three but in
many cases not enough competitors are invited to fill out three classes).
But two classes just isn’t enough. The finalists in the lightweight
class were all under 118 pounds – one only 113 pounds – and
in an IFBB pro show they would have to compete against women weighing over
130. The idea of weight classes being used by the IFBB was, in part,
to allow lightweight amateur women to have a chance to compete successfully
in the pros, but without a pro lightweight class smaller amateurs are just
wasting their time. In the NPC,
in the past, amateur lightweights were too often just genetic middleweights
who weren’t big enough yet. But the Nationals lightweights were a good class this year. When lightweight
Susan Fancini stood next to the other class winners in the posedown, she
didn’t look at all out of place – just smaller.
There was also a uniform good quality to the middleweights, won by 132 pound Jeannie Paparone. But the level of development exhibited by most of the women in Dallas was considerably different from that of the IFBB pro women. Like each of the weight class winners, Jeannie qualifies for an IFBB pro card, but for all these class winners earning a pro card is quite different from actually being competitive against IFBB pros. There is a long road from qualifying to enter IFBB contests and being able to compete successfully against middleweights like Valentina Chepiga, Dayana Cadeau or Juliette Bergmann. NPC bodybuilders who get a pro card as the result of winning the USA or their classes at the Nationals (and this is usually true for the men as well as the women) should be prepared, in most cases, to have to start at the bottom in the pros and work their way up. This can be very discouraging after being the best in the country as an amateur and it takes a lot of character and determination to persevere under these circumstances.
By the way, there is no rule dictating that NPC amateurs can't be good enough to be immediately competitive in IFBB pro shows. But this is another reason for the NPC to resist any attempts to limit the development of its competitors for political reasons. All this does is give a big advantage to non-USA women bodybuilders like Joanna Thomas or Fannie Barrios in international pro competition.
The heavyweight class and overall was won by Sarah Dunlap, whose level of definition and muscularity should be noticed by women bodybuilders who aspire to success but have been told not to get too muscular or too hard. But at 143 pounds, even though very muscular Sarah is not very big, so it remains to be seen how she will do against the much more massive pro heavyweights. If the federations want to encourage female bodybuiders to avoid putting on too much size and losing aesthetic quality, they have to think about a light heavyweight class in the near future.
Fourth in the class was Tatianna Butler – the cover model for my new photo book Modern Amazons. Off season, Tatianna has one of the most shapely and sensuous physiques in the sport. But when she diets down for a contest she loses a great deal of symmetry – although she looked much less depleted at the Nationals than she had at the USA. Still, a 158 pound Tatianna is just too small. She probably needs to be a ripped 165 - 170 pounds to retain her best shape and symmetry.
Denver’s Heather Policky placed 5th, but there is some question as to whether her physique has been properly appreciated by NPC judges. I’ve written about that elsewhere, but since Heather has only been competing for two years it is highly probable that her physique and perception of the judges will both improve over time.
ConclusionMaybe the current crop of amateur women is just the leading edge of an oncoming wave of female bodybuilders coming up through the pipeline and in a few years we’ll see national winners who can more easily step into the pro ranks and be competitive.