FigureRX Contest Preview: 2007 Kentucky Muscle Pro Figure
November 5, 2007
Welcome to the
Team FigureRX preview for the KentuckyMuscle Pro Figure Championships! We are pleased to say that we will be on site in Louisville for coverage of this first time show which has already grown into one of the largest of the year. The promoter L. Brent Jones has done an incredible job putting together a complete portfolio of events, including an excellent expo and a Jason Dhir after party. Geographically the location is excellent, central to the midwest, southeast and the northeast, and as the last show of the year it is attractive to those in shape gunning for the stage one last time before the long offseason layoff. Louisville is a party town surrounded by horse country and the bars stay open until 5am, it's going to be a blast so if you are in the area be sure to stop by and say hello! And for the record, there's absolutely no truth to the rumor that the entire staff is downing Maker's Mark to "get in the mood" for this preview!!
There will be at least three very exciting pro debuts at this show.
Karen Mullarkey will be returning to her home town for her first IFBB show (see below for her feature) and
Jessica Wright will be looking to extend the string of amazingly consistent success she has had at the amateur level into the pro ranks.
Desha Rodriguez will also be starting her pro career, she has a lot of promise and will definitely do well.
Constantly improving athlete
MaryJo Cooke will contend for the top as always while IFBB bodybuilder
Carla Salotti will be switching over to compete in figure.
Elaine Goodlad returns to competing after a long layoff and we're excited to see her and to cover Texan
Amy Peters for the first time. Add the gorgeous and talented
Jelena Abbou to the mix and you definitely have one of the best lineups all year.
MaryJo Cooke sported a little bit of a different look in Sacramento, and we thought it was very refreshing to see her with dark hair and lighter posing suits in a sea of competitors wearing dark suits. MaryJo will undoubtedly contend for the top in Louisville, but to take the crown whe will need to edge out the champ from Sacramento,
Michelle Flake. At
FigureRX it's no secret that we like to see a little more substantive muscle at the top and we're hoping that MaryJo will be rewarded for the mass that she has been able to add even during the competition season. MaryJo has placed second in four straight pro shows (not counting the Olympia). We think it will be an amazing off season for this school teacher and role model and it will also be a tremendous honor to sit down and talk with her at this show.
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-------------------------------------------------MaryJo Cooke-Elliott
Another athlete who belongs at or near the top of any IFBB pro show that she enters is
Jelena Abbou. Jelena is heavily featured on magazine covers right now (
LINK) and it's time to see her hard work rewarded on the stage, and we'd like to see her get an Olympia qualification as well as an invite to the Arnold (see our upcoming article on getting selected to the Arnold -
LINK). Jelena always brings one of the best delt-to-waist ratios on stage and her conditioning has been improving for each show. Her back and glute genetics and conditioning are some of the best you will see on stage for her body type. Jelena placed 7th at the New York Pro and the Atlantic City Pro and we hope that she moves up in Kentucky.
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--------------------------------------------------Jelena Abbou
Before we discuss our spotlight athlete, a home town girl, we'll round out our projection for the top three by including
Michelle Flake, the overall winner last weekend at the Sacramento. We'd be foolish not to include her, since any statistician will tell you that past performance is the best predictor of future success. Michelle went pro by winning the overall title at the 2005 USA's, which was an extremely competitive show. She made a splash from the start at the pro level and even qualified for the Olympia, adding muscle to her frame along the way.
Bodysport has done an excellent feature on what has been happening in Michelle's life since then, it's a remarkable story of personal strength and perseverance. (
LINK)
Michelle has the type of physique that allows her to achieve curves and the perfect shape without adding a lot of size, because of her tiny knee and elbow joints. She looks great with and without a lot of muscle, we especially love her legs even at her lighter weight because she still shows mass and has outstanding hamstring development. We'd like to see a little bit more of a lat spread and more defined and sizeable arm muscles, but we understand that Michelle presents a package that is popular among the judges on the pro scene today. Given that, and her amazing overall symmetry, Michelle has an excellent shot to repeat her Sacramento win at the KentuckyMuscle.
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---------------------------------------------------Michelle Flake
FigureRX KentuckyMuscle Pro Featured Athlete - Karen Mullarkey
We're excited to be able to feature Louisville native
Karen Mullarkey as she returns home for her IFBB figure pro debut! She even has some mainstream media coverage for this show, way to go Karen that's a huge positive not only for you but also for the sport. That equals "bonus points" in the media component of our IFBB rankings!! To see her feature in the Louisville Courier please go
here.
What makes this show even more thrilling for a first time competitor is that this is also a first time show, in a town where Olympia champion
Jenny Lynn now lives in a state that is gradually turning into a stronghold for figure and fitness (thanks to the efforts of promoters like Jones and athletes like
Julie Lohre).
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Coming into this show Karen is on a roll in the game of life, having won her pro card back in July at National Figure in New York after competing at the national level for three years. Then she was married less than two months ago, in beautiful Lake Tahoe, in the midst of her contest prep! Karen is member of Team Labrada and she also represented WheyUp at the 2007 Olympia. All of these accomplishments come as no surprise to those who know her, as she has been a competitive athlete all of her life culminating with a field hockey scholarship to Kent State University. Like many female athletes, she was able to continue high level athletics when she discovered the sport of figure. Competing in figure started out as a dare between Karen and her good friend
Lynn Widdowson, who won her pro card two weeks later at the USA's!
After this show, where we expect her to do very well, Karen plans to focus on developing her fitness modeling career, obtaining endorsements, and driving toward her goal of appearing on stage to compete at the 2008 figure Olympia. If you attend the show be prepared to hear a lot of cheering when Karen is on stage and when her name is announced. And it won't just be
Team FigureRX 
, we have been been warned that Kentuckians can be very loud!!
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---------------------------------------------------Karen Mullarkey
There are several other extremely anticipated professional debuts at this show, starting with tall, talented, and superbly built athlete
Jessica Wright who will be making the short trip from her home state of Indiana. As an entity we are almost entirely NPC-based, and if you have been involved in the NPC over the past two years you know the type of competitor Jessica has become. Nobody dials in their prep more consistently than her, and she already has some of the best delts and calves in the pro ranks. She brings the muscle and sometimes she even brings the quad separation, and you know that we appreciate that. We expect Jessica to be a major player here in Kentucky and next year at the pro level.
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---------------------------------------------------Jessica Wright
We've been anticipating
Desha Rodriquez's debut for a while, and if you have followed our national NPC coverage this year you know that we've already pegged her as an example of perfect presentation on stage. This Florida girl's rise to the pro level was rapid and well deserved, after placing 8th in New York she won her class at the USA's (
LINK). Not only is Desha beautiful, but she carries herself extremely well from the way that she poses down to minor details like her shoes and bling. Debuts are tough especially in a show this large but we know that she will come in looking her best with guns blazing and when all is said and done we think she'll find herself in the top ten.
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--------------------------------------------------Desha Rodriguez
For the first time we will be on hand to see legendary athlete
Elaine Goodlad compete on stage, after all the help she has provided to
Team FigureRX athletes as a makeup artist in the past two years. Elaine's track record is exemplary, with top ten finishes at both the Arnold and the Olympia under her belt as well as a victory at the 2004 California Pro. In fact, we don't believe that she has finished outside the top ten at any contest since the 2003 Olympia. Very few will match Elaine's back and glute development and we think she'll place very well at this show.
---------------------------------CLICK HERE TO VISIT ELAINE'S WEB SITE
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-----------------------------------------------------Elaine Goodlad
Amy Peters is one of our favorite athletes, we've run into her a few times in the audience at shows and she is one of those individuals who moves like a champion no matter what she is doing. She won her pro card at the 2005 Junior Nationals along with
Tammy Pies,
Jessica Paxon, and
Valerie Waugaman. Amy's placings have been very solid since the 2006 Europa, and we were simply blown away by the package that she presented at this year's Pittsburgh Pro and we would have placed her much higher at the Europa. Given Amy's level of muscularity and perfect symmetry we'd love to see her place at least in the top five at the KentuckyMuscle.
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------------------------------------------------------Amy Peters
Sticking with the theme of athletes who should have placed considerably higher at the Europa, Coloradan
Liane Seiwald is one of the most underrated athletes in the IFBB. She has incredible arms and really dialed in her conditioning to place 7th at the Jan Tana (see the photo on the bottom right).
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----------------------------------------------------Liane Seiwald
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Speaking of Kentucky, we have to recommend one of the best athlete web sites out there.
IFBB Pro Fitness superstar
Julie Lohre's home on the web is run by
Lohre Creative, and
we know they will also be providing excellent coverage in Louisville!! Julie will be guest
performing her superb Olympia Fitness routine at the show, so stand in the back so you can
catch the football.
-----------------------------CLICK HERE TO VISIT JULIE'S WEB SITE
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We're incredibly impressed with how often
Marie Gibbon has been competing this year and how consistently well she has looked. Marie's strengths are her spectacular Christmas tree, her delts and her glutes (she reminds us of NPC competitor
Angela Watson). She placed 16th in Atlantic City and 14th in Palm Beach and hopefully she will keep moving up at this show. We have to give a special shout out to Marie for her help navigating the Scandinavian landscape as
FigureRX seeks to do more cross-promotion for athletes from across the pond.
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----------------------------------------------------Marie Gibbon
Since we're talking about
Kate Shelby and others at the middle and the bottom of our preview it should be obvious that we're not going in order of anticipated placings, and at a show this size we would not even attempt to predict what might happen. Every single one of these athletes deserves our praise and admiration for what they have accomplished. For Kate, we decided to switch out one of the photos below to show her overall muscle shapes and conditioning from the 2006 Europa. At the bottom left, you can see her exhibiting almost perfect figure lines including capped delts, a tight midsection, quad sweep, beautiful calves, and that upper thigh tie-in that announces substance and hard work in the gym. This is Kate's neck of the woods, she grew up in Ohio and now lives in Tennessee, and you can bet that she will be bring a similar shape and will be ready for this one.
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------------------------------------------------------Kate Shelby
There's a lot of well deserved buzz surrounding
Darlina Brown, who qualified for the 2008 Olympia last weekend at the Sacramento Pro! When we first saw Darlina at the Europa we had no idea who she was but we knew she would soon be placing at the top of figure competitions. We hope to complete her
Team FigureRX spotlight athlete interview while on the ground in Kentucky.
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----------------------------------------------------Darlina Brown
If you don't believe us yet when we say we're not going in order, here comes Florida girl
Marcy Porter. Marcy's competitive record includes 8th and 9th place, respectively, at the 2006 Colorado Pro and the 2006 California State Pro. We're fans of Marcy's overall symmetrical structure and she actually reminds us a lot of Michelle, last week's Sacramento winner. If you have some time, check out Marcy's photo shoot with John Stutz (
LINK).
---------------------------------CLICK HERE TO VISIT MARCY'S WEB SITE
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-----------------------------------------------------Marcy Porter
What we know about
Corry Matthews comes from her friend and business manager
Shelby Kadyk, who relocated to Virginia to work with Corry at a few Max Muscle Sports Nutrition stores that she owns. Corry seems be a wonderful person who continues to overcome a lot in her life, including an injury which has led her to compete in pro figure even though she earned her pro card in fitness in 2005. She was invited to the Arnold this year where she placed 14th and then followed that up with a 14th place at the Jan Tana. We look forward to learning more about her in Louisville.
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---------------------------------------------------Corry Matthews
Celeste Gonzalez has an Olympia-quality physique and is coming off a 14th place finish in Sacramento. If she can tighten up a little bit she may move up in an extremely competive and large field.
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--------------------------------------------Celeste Gonzalez-Leandro
Of the 2007 pro card winners,
Brenda Smith is one of the quietest as far media exposure so it's great to see her surfacing for a debut in Kentucky. She won her pro card by taking Class C as this year's Junior Nationals. Brenda is very symmetrical with an oustanding back flare-out and champion-level delts and quads. We believe that she is with Fitness Factory so you know that she will come in prepared.
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-----------------------------------------------------Brenda Smith
Rose-Maria has withdrawn - we love you get well soon and see you next year!
Rose-Maria Romero really hit her stride on stage in Sacramento, we were pleased with her overall conditioning combined with her ability to soften up just a little bit for the judges in all the right places to place 11th. Our friends (and partners in the "coalition of the willing") down under have really put together a great one-two punch with Rose-Maria and
Arina Manta. Rose-Maria is a symmetry queen and she has an ideal overall figure shape, and she is one of the non-USA based competitors that the IFBB should be thrilled to see competing at the top.
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-------------------------------------------------Rosa-Maria Romero
Here's the part of the preview where we get to eat some crow. Our research staff became a little over eager when we were putting together the contest preview for the Sacramento Pro, and overly criticized
April Fortier. That is not in the spirit of
FigureRX, where we exist to support athletes at every level of figure and fitness and to create a positive environment for expansion of the sport(s). We take our media responsibilities very seriously and it is important that we maintain that positive environment in order to reach our goal of becoming the most informative and complete figure and fitness web site. The offending text has been deleted, and the intern has been locked in the closet with one of the bottles of Maker's Mark!!
You can read up on what we really think of April by going back to our 2007 USA's Figure Preview in the July issue of our magazine (
LINK). April has the genetics to go very far in this sport, including an outstanding midsection, but has a little bit of wood to chop if she wishes to compete solely in figure. In the long term we'd like to see her bring in her traps just a little bit but we're betting that she'll already have improved her upper leg conditioning by the time she arrives in Kentucky.
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-----------------------------------------------------April Fortier
Floridian
Cynthia Sharp will be making the trip to Kentucky after placing 15th at the Palm Beach Pro. Cynthia probably needs to get her name out a little bit more so it's great that she's competing at two shows in close proximity.
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-----------------------------------------------------Cynthia Sharp
Pia Marlen-Johnsen absolutely deserves to move up relative to her placing at the Palm Beach Pro and we hope she does so. Pia is part of the incredible trifecta over at ALR Industries along with megastar
Krissy Chin and fitness athlete
Kendra Elias. You can check out video of Pia and Kendra in our Palm Beach Pro contest report.
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------------------------------------------------------Pia Johnsen
There are two late entrants to the event who both won their pro cards in 2006.
Stephanie Togrul from Ohio was the overall winner at the 2006 Masters in Pittsburgh and she will be making her IFBB professional debut. We're very impressed with
TinaMarie Bloomfield's physique, she has a very sleek presentation and came in hard and lean at this year's Pittsburgh Pro. TinaMarie won her pro card at the 2006 Junior National championships at the same time as
MaryJo Cooke.
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-----------------------------------------------TinaMarie Bloomfield
-------------------Stephanie Togrul
Professional bodybuilder
Carla Salotti will be making her figure debut and since we like more muscle in figure we're excited to see what package she will bring. Although she lives in New England (the Pats are finally going down on November 18th
), she has ties to Tim and
Brandie Gardner and their gym in Tampa, one of our home areas, and she's literally helped hundreds of athletes backstage via her affiliation with Pro Tan.
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------------------------------------------------------Carla Salotti
Sherie Salvadori came out of nowhere (and from far away, since she lives in Florida) to finish one spot out of an Olympia qualification at the Sacramento Pro. The 4th place nod came on the heels of an 8th place finish at the Tournament of Champions, her first foray into the top ten. So to say that Sherie is on a roll would be an understatement and we'll see if she is able to keep it up in Kentucky.
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--------------------------------------------------Sherie Salvadori
Maiken Emborg made a meaningful return to the stage in Sacramento after a very long layoff, and she will be continuing her comeback in Kentucky as well.
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--------------------------------------------------Maiken Emborg
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-----------------------------------------------Kirsten Nicewarner
