NPC SHOWS
Do you have to ask?
Comstock
Wuzzup With Figure?
USA class winners—the shape of things to come (from short to tall): Kristen Gomes, Felicia Romero, Consi Shirlaw, Angela Terlewski, Natalie Benson and Simona Douglas.
Sometimes things are not mutually exclusive. For example, take the two big NPC season-finale figure-ramas that took place two weeks apart at the Figure Nationals and USA Championships last July, where the judges’ tastes seemed to lean toward the less-developed contestants. Afterward, you had comments by judges that too many of the physiques were too big and hard and complaints from athletes and others that figure was becoming like a bikini contest. On one side of the conversation were several judges I spoke with, who were not pleased about the number of competitors they thought were too muscular and complained that the women stood with their lats flared like bodybuilders. I don’t disagree with that; it just amazes me that anyone is surprised. Take a look at the top-five lineups at pro-figure qualifiers for the past year or so and note the number who were sporting more muscle than Rachel McLish’s wildest
dreams. Despite any statements to the contrary, the NPC and IFBB’s war on excessive muscularity on women has seemed to be subject to a sporadic cease-fire on the figure front. In a forum on a Web site devoted to the female physique sports, one regular wrote after her experience at the Nationals, “I was told I look like a bodybuilder and had too much separation in my quads. I thought a figure show was about having a good degree of muscularity and definition but not being overdeveloped and striated. I was wrong. Last year they told me I was thin and to put on size. Now I am too big.” When questioned on an individual call, bodybuilding judges often say, We have to go with the best of what we see onstage that day. That often comes down to, we cannot reward a competitor for having a better shape if she didn’t come in shape. Thus, in the past year we’ve seen the ascension to the pros of some ladies who were probably told to tone it down
BACKSTAGE BODS: USA FIGURE
F-class faces and forms (from left): Angela Stueber, Tamee Marie and Jamie Reed.
Classic. Nancy Georges, the top Ms. Fitness champ in 1991, still gets the judges’ attention—she took third in a class of 36.
You’ve got to admit, Nola Trimble stands out. She was fifth in the E class—at the Figure Nationals as well as the USA.
258 NOVEMBER 2006 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com
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