FigureRX Contest Preview: 2007 Figure Olympia
September 17th, 2007
By Stephen Bierer and Danielle Rouleau
Special thanks to expert photographer Terry Goodlad for allowing the use of his photos for purposes of our contest previews, so we can show each of the competitors looking her best. Please visit two of the classiest web sites in the fitness and figure industry, Bodysport and Hardbodeez.
-------------------------------
If you are a figure fan like we are you have to be thrilled with the lineup at this year's Olympia. Competitions at the pro level seemed to open up a little more during the 2006-07 season, with unpredictable placings and a record number of athletes qualifying for the finale in Las Vegas. Part of that is the sheer number of pro figure shows sprouting up anyplace where they can scrape up $10,000 for the IFBB, but the other reason is the turnover on stage. Ten out of the 21 competitors in 2006 will not be here, meaning there are only eleven holdovers joining sixteen others to form the largest field (28 contestants who will actually compete) in the history of the Figure Olympia.
And all of them are deserving athletes, convincing us that this is the absolute best collection of figure talent ever to appear in one place at one time. We've placed the competitors into three categories: contenders for the top three, contenders for the top ten, and then the rest of the best class in Olympia history. So stay away from John Romano's weekend itinerary advice so you're in a coherent state and able to enjoy this show! (Editors note: We fully endorse Dave Palumbo's morning runs to Baja Fresh – breakfast of champions. We also agree that nobody should stay or eat a meal at The Orleans). And for now, enjoy our preview – this is how
FigureRX would call it if we were in the judging pit and it's the way we hope it will turn out if each athlete appears in the best shape of her life.
Not able to make it to the Olympia? Check out the live web cast
here.
FigureRX Olympia Featured Athlete - Amy Fry
Our featured athlete for the 2007 Figure Olympia, and one of our selections for the top ten in her Olympia debut, is Pennsylvanian
Amy Fry. Amy is an athlete on the rise and her 2007 pro placings include 2nd at the Jan Tana, 3rd at the Pittsburgh Pro, and 7th at the Motor City Pro. She is 5'9" with some of the best legs, abs and overall symmetry in the pro ranks, and we think she deserves a lot more attention and mention among the best IFBB professional figure competitors in the world.
---
---
At
FigureRX we're all about featuring athletes who are superheroes both on and off the figure stage, and Amy also grew up in Pittsburgh as a tremendous natural athlete. She played volleyball and track in high school and made the Junior Olympic Traveling volleyball team. Amy received a full athletic scholarship to play volleyball and graduated from California University of Pennsylvania with honors. Amy is trained by Frank Jezioro and she works in the Pittsburgh area as a personal trainer. She's also an entrepreneur, with an airbrush spray tan service and online personal training business. When she hits the stage in Las Vegas, keep a close eye on Amy's bling - she designed all of her own jewelry for the Olympia and will begin selling her creations on her web site after the show.
We know you will be hearing a lot more about Amy Fry in the near future, so check out her web site at
http://amyfryfigurechic.com/.
---
The Contenders (Top Three Potential)
Every year about this time we think that maybe, just maybe, the stars will align and the powers that be will crown
Monica Brant as Ms. Figure Olympia. For a while it was hard to justify displacing
Davana Medina's package, she was a very deserving winner, and Monica seemed to come up just a little bit short against
Jenny Lynn as well. She placed 2nd in 2004 and then 3rd each of the following three years. But this year (like last year) the race at the top is wide open and we think that the parity at the top should allow Monica to get that one big figure win (to go along with her fitness title) that she needs to complete her legacy. She still has some of the best legs and glutes on stage and we'd like to see her come in with enough back definition this year to seal the deal.
---
---------------------------------------------Monica Brant
-----------
"Uncrowned Miss Olympia" with Dani Rouleau at the 2007 Arnold
After Monica, the next best thing would be seeing
Valerie Waugaman take the big prize. If the IFBB is interested in expanding the sport in the USA and worldwide, which is one of the big goals of
FigureRX, then we can't think of a better spokesperson. Valerie doesn't bring the attainable, mainstream physique; she brings unattainable perfection with the best quad separation on stage, incredible beauty and an absolutely perfect figure shape. Calves, hamstrings, tiny joints, capped delts, and lats that flare out from a tight midsection. Politics aside, very few can hope to beat her when she is at her best, and a win by Valerie would also send figure in the right direction by showing a little more muscle. Valerie won her pro card in 2005 and then placed 7th at her Olympia debut that year. She fell to 12th last year and was likely penalized for her posing routine, but look for her to challenge for the top spot this year.
Go
here to see a description of Valerie's preparations.
And if you want to see what the posing controversy last year was all about, check out the longer re-do of Valerie's routine at the Palm Beach Pro. Footage is courtesy of our friends at HDPhysiques:
LINK
---
------------------------------------------Valerie Waugaman
Another athlete who brings solid muscle and killer instinct in the gym is Texas girl
Amanda Savell. Oxygen Magazine put together one of their best covers ever when they chose her for the March 2007 issue, right before she took the runner-up spot at the 2007 Figure International. Amanda also placed 3rd at the 2006 Arnold and 7th at last year's Olympia. We think that this is the year she will contend for the top three and move into the top five. She has one of our favorite physiques and we especially like her etched back and the way she is able to combine size with rock-hard conditioning. We hope Amanda brings it with crazy veins showing in her lower abs like she did at the Arnold!
---
---------------------------------------------Amanda Savell
Our most controversial pick among the six athletes we believe have a shot at the top three this year would be 23-year old
Gina Aliotti. After her showing at the Tournament of Champions we feel even more strongly about Gina's ability to challenge at the top levels of this sport. She is an athlete on the rise and she has everything we would want to see in a Figure Olympia champion - we love the way she trains and we think her physique is close to ideal. She comes in perfectly shaped, big, full, hard and vascular - and she's extremely marketable and would be an excellent representative to mainstream America. At 5'5" Gina also has enough height to stand with the big girls and to lead a changing of the generational guard. She placed 6th at both the 2006 Olympia and the 2007 Arnold.
Seriously, your jaw will drop when you check out how good Gina looked in our Tournament of Champions contest report
here.
---
-----------------------------------------------Gina Aliotti
Some people have treated
Mary Elizabeth Lado's success, and particularly her back to back wins at the Arnold, as a disaster which will lead to the demise of figure as we know it. Since she doesn't have as much muscle, surely it means we are on our way to turning into Ms. Bikini Bahamas!
Mary still has the overall shape to score near the top, however, even if it is largely an illusion - she looks ripped because she is able to dial it in and show up lean. She does have outstanding glutes and we know she trains legs like an animal in the gym. So we have a great deal of respect for her and even though we would prefer she pack on a bit more muscle she will contend for the top three and probably belongs around 6th or 7th.
---
----------------------------------------Mary Elizabeth Lado
Our final contender for the top spot is Kentucky transplant and personal trainer
Jenny Lynn. Oh, she also happens to be last year's champion and she was runner-up in 2004 and 2005. There are a few competitors on the stage who may deserve to beat her this year, but will they be able to dethrone her? Jenny works hard for what she has, she's not a genetic marvel like Valerie or Gina. Her weakness in recent years has been her lower abs and there are small signs that perhaps other things have begun to catch up with her, but it's still hard to bet against Jenny on this particular stage. She's like a star running back who has lost a step, but she still may be a step ahead of everyone else.
---
-----------------------------------------------Jenny Lynn
-----------
The reigning champ with co-author Danielle Rouleau at the 2006 Arnold
The Second Tier (Top Ten Potential)
MET-Rx-sponsored JMP athlete and manicurist
Sonia Adcock might be at the same level as
Gina Aliotti, except there are no height classes in the pro ranks. Sonia is a member of the 2006 pro card class and won the overall at Nationals, and she also placed 3rd at the Arnold this year. She has great arms, with fullness and vascularity combined with small joints. Her track record at the pro level is very efficient, with top finishes in every show she enters, and if she shows up as hard as she did at the California Pro this year we expect Sonia to solidly break into the top ten in her first trip to the Olympia stage.
---
---------------------------------------------Sonia Adcock
Early in the season there were rumors that
Amber Littlejohn might retire and for a while we believed them. Not because we know much about her, but because she doesn't seem to have a whole lot of enthusiasm for the business side of the sport. Just like Miss America, who has a lot of duties to perform during the year, we need Olympia champions who will work like hell to improve publicity for figure and fitness in the mainstream community. Amber disappears for much of the year and seems to have very little presence.
Sure, we know about the track record at the Olympia - 5th place in 2004, 4th place in 2005, and 2nd place in 2006. We also know about Amber's crazy genetics with beautiful round shoulders, a tight waist and some of the smallest knee joints that we have seen - all on a 5'8" athlete. On top of the track record and the physique we also hear the rumblings that this may be her year, but they're coming from some unreliable sources. Amber has the body, but not the overall look to be champion and we think she'll take a small step backward this year.
---
-------------------------------------------Amber Littlejohn
Since we only recently began to step up our pro coverage, we must admit that
Chastity Slone caught us by surprise with her last minute entry and showing at the Atlantic City Pro. We won't underestimate this gorgeous athlete again, however, and she will be a top ten contender in Las Vegas. Chastity has the overall shape combined with good vascularity, and her experience includes 4th and 7th place finishes at the Arnold and an 11th place finish at the Olympia in 2005.
---
---------------------------------------------Chastity Slone
It used to be believed that European athletes couldn't place well in pro contests held in the United States, but Lithuanian
Zivile Raudoniene stood that notion on its head when she won the New York Pro earlier this year. Zivile has a classic figure shape and she will benefit from the desire to push European athletes up the ranks in the IFBB, but we'd like to see her put on a little more muscularity in her back and bring up her calves, which are a weakness that she should rectify to move beyond the top ten. The sky's the limit for her, however, because of her long muscle bellies and tiny joints.
---
---------------------------------------------Zivile Raudoniene
Indiana athlete
Jennifer Gates, who is sponsored by Omaha-based Eight Ball Nutrition, has been tearing up the pro circuit since winning her card earlier this year. She took third at the New York Pro and then won the overall at the Motor City Pro. We know that many are placing Jennifer higher, but we are believers in paying your dues in your first trip to the Olympia. So we'll be pleased to see Jennifer crack the top ten in her debut.
---
---------------------------------------------Jennifer Gates
Another athlete who has been quietly placing very well in the major shows is
Latisha Wilder, a Phat Camper from Columbus, Ohio. Latisha placed 12th at the 2005 Olympia and then cracked the top ten last year, and we so no reason why she can't do that again even though this is a much more competitive field of athletes. Latisha can contend with the best in a back comparison, we love her lats, glutes and hams. She's also very consistent on stage, placing in the top seven at the last three Arnolds.
---
---------------------------------------------Latisha Wilder
At FigureRX our main focus is the NPC, and we root heavily for the athletes who have recently made the leap to pro status. So we're pulling hard for
Heather Green and we're thrilled with the level of muscle mass she is carrying right now. Heather has great leg and back development and along with
Amy Fry she is our dark horse pick for the top ten at the Olympia.
---
---------------------------------------------Heather Green
Another top athlete with a chance at a high finish is veteran
Shannon Meteraud, who exploded back onto the scene this year after taking a break to have a child, and won the Europa. We like Shannon's thickness, especially in her back and calves, and she could even have a shot at the top six in future years if she is able to bring her traps down somewhat so her gorgeous capped delts can protrude above them.
---
---------------------------------------------Shannon Meteraud
Our final potential contender for the top ten, in no particular order, is 2006 USA's Class E winner
Natalie Benson. Natalie is another genetic wonder with an ideal figure shape, but historically athletes with her level of muscularity have not been rewarded at the Olympia. If you isolate each of her body parts and place them side by side in a comparison with anyone else on stage Natalie would come out on top nine times out of ten. Of course we'd like to see her do well, we're just not sure the judges will do the right thing in her case.
---
---------------------------------------------Natalie Benson
The Rest of the Best Field Ever
This group of athletes is so impressive that we're not just using a cliche when we say that everyone should be proud to be standing on that stage this year. We've given 16 competitors a shot at the top ten, but that doesn't mean there won't be room for surprises in either direction. We originally had
Bernadette Galvan in the top ten group but it's a numbers game with too much talent at the top. Bernadette is another athlete from the talented class of 2005, and she has the overall look to do very well. In the past year she placed 2nd at the Pittsburgh Pro and 4th at the Houston Pro.
---
------------------------------------------Bernadette Galvan
We were happy to see more opportunities for Europeans to qualify in 2007 and we hope that trend extends to other areas like Australia and South America in future years.
Inga Neverauskaite has a beautifully symmetrical physique and she is the winner of the Netherlands Pro. We'd like to see her do some additional shows in the United States to improve her visibility and to perhaps move up.
---
---------------------------------------Inga Neverauskaite
Another athlete with a chance to help bring on a generational change at the top is
Felicia Romero from Arizona, a 23-year old who went pro with Natalie at the 2006 USAs. Felicia is really a wild card in this competition, because she has marketability and placed no lower than 5th in the three shows she entered this year (including a win at the Jan Tana). We'd like to see her pack on some more muscle particularly in her lower body.
---
--------------------------------------------Felicia Romero
MaryJo Cooke picked up yet another top two placing at the Tournament of Champions this weekend, and she's somewhat of an enigma to us as we approach the big contest. You can begin to see the problem placing everyone at the Olympia when you realize that MaryJo never fell lower than second in any of her previous pro shows in 2007. But where is the room to elevate her in Las Vegas, who would get bumped? MaryJo has been improving her physique steadily as she moves up the pro ranks but there are so many amazing athletes here.
---
------------------------------------------MaryJo Cooke-Elliott
We like
Danielle Hollenshade's potential a lot, and we know she had some travel difficulties on her way to the Atlantic City Pro which contributed to her 12th place showing there last week. But for whatever reason she wasn't at her best two weeks out from the Olympia and we've dropped her a notch here, until she hits the pre-judging and shows us otherwise.
---
------------------------------------------Danielle Hollenshade
Another athlete with consistently high pro show finishes is
Chandra Coffey, who placed 3rd at the Europa and 4th in New York. That should put her somewhere in the high teens or early 20s as far as placing among this incredible group. Chandra has good muscle but needs to get a little sleeker especially in her lower body to move up.
---
---------------------------------------------Chaundra Coffey
If you aren't exasperated yet (we are) trying to fit 20 incredibly talented athletes into the top slots then here comes
Andrea Dumon, the champion of the Atlantic City Pro show last weekend. We haven't been huge fans of Andrea in the past because from a fundamental standpoint she doesn't quite have the overall symmetrical look that some other athletes bring - she is missing the "wow" factor. We feel she needs a darker tan, more refined presentation, more arm muscle, and improved lower body symmetry. But that's on stage, when we see her as a fitness model we think she looks a lot better. There is no doubt that Andrea is a champion and it will be interesting to see where they place her in Las Vegas.
---
----------------------------------------------Andrea Dumon
Meriza DeGuzman was the final athlete to qualify, by virtue of her third place finish this weekend at the Tournament of Champions. As we said in our contest report, it's rare to see hip to waist to lat ratios like this on a shorter competitor, and Meriza has the abs and legs to go along with her overall symmetry. We'd like to see a little more arm and delt size but we think she will do well in Las Vegas based on the look she just presented in Orange County.
---
------------------------------------------Meriza DeGuzman
Rounding out this incredible field are four additional well qualified competitors, two of whom won their place at the Netherlands Pro. We know a little less about the European athletes but
Nicole Pitcher-Scott has proven that she belongs at this level with her placing at the Colorado Pro and she brings a lot of muscle including excellent striations. All four of these athletes will be making their first trip to the Olympia stage and we hope that they have a wonderful experience.
---
-----------------Jeanette Freed------------------------------Nicole Pitcher-Scott
---
-----------------Susanne Bock------------------------------Celeste Gonzalez
_______________________________________________________________________
Check out the official web site of Team FigureRX athlete and NPC Figure Star Allison Moyer
at http://www.allifit.com/. Her web site features access to exclusive photos and videos
along with her personal online training diary!
.
