PUMP & CiRCUMSTANCE WINNERS
MORE FLUFF
Cal Cuties
Dang!
Picking up where we left off last month
D I VA S
Talented trio takes a bow (from left): Ryan, Johnson and Rollolazo.
Comstock
Three of fitness’ finest performers—Kelly Ryan, Tanji Johnson and Nicole Rollolazo—are now strutting their stuff in tandem at an event near you. Billing themselves as the Vibe Tribe, they brought down the house at the Contra Costa Championships in Northern California and were booked for the USA at the end of July.
Comstock
What a Good Idea!
Mary gets the point. What’s a shy girl to do? According to Mary Elizabeth Lado, she’s the unlikeliest of figure champions ever. “I used to be shy about wearing a bathing suit on the beach,” says sport’s new Louisiana belle, who so far in her freshman year of quarterturning for quarters has actually made a few bucks, having taken third at the Figure International and scored backto-back wins in Pittsburgh and California. Somehow her reticence didn’t stop the 5’7”, 134-pound former collegiate softball star—at Chipola College in Florida—from getting onstage when figure called. Though she may still be a bit reticent when she’s bikini-clad and under the spotlight, in sweats and surrounded by her peers with a couple of hours to kill before their turn onstage at the Cal, she sparkled for a roving reporter. “I was always athletic,” she said in her distinctive L’usiana drawl. “If I wasn’t playing softball, I was in the gym.” Her competitive career just happened: “I went to a figure show, and I said, ‘Dang! I want to try that.’” A quick trip from second in her class at the ’03 Louisiana Championships to overall champ at the ’04 Figure Nationals ensued, and Mary Lado is unexpectedly having a ball. After months of remaining in contest-ready condition, she was planning a rest until the big show in October, where the 26-year-old from Metairie will be, in this opinion, the most likely candidate to shake up the top three.
222 SEPTEMBER 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com
Free download from imbodybuilding.com
Comstock
Comstock
Hot off her win in Pittsburgh, Mary Elizabeth Lado danced into Los Angeles for Memorial Day weekend and sashayed off with the top prize at the California Pro Figure, which was held with the NPC state championships of the same name on May 27 and 28. Though Lado’s physique appeared flat compared with her earlier appearances this year, she definitely has the package the judges are looking for: long and curvy; well toned but not to the point of T.U.–bodybuilder muscularity. Chorus line at the Cal. Just blocks from the (Come to think of it, that could be a description of old MGM studio in Culver City, California, Figure O champ Davana these bodies sang to the judges (from left): Medina.) Observers in the D.J. Wallis, Michelle Adams, Mary Elizabeth packed house at the VeterLado, Amber Littlejohn and Tara Scotti. ans Memorial Auditorium in Culver City thought it was a very close call between Lado and second-placer Amber Littlejohn, who was in superb form, but the decisions were unanimous. In third, Michelle Adams looked better than she had in Pittsburgh, with the well-conditioned Tara Scotti in fourth and the always-in-contention D.J. Wallis rounding out the top five. Scotti missed out on a top-three finish by two points, but it’s all good. She’d qualified for the O at the Eastern Seaboard a couple of weeks earlier and went on to her first pro win at the Toronto show the following week. In fact, nobody new got an Olympia nod at this one, as the top four already had theirs. With 25 beautiful bodies in the lineup and the judges scoring to 16, anyone who made the top 10 had a good day.