- Details
-
Published on Tuesday, 16 October 2012 18:01
-
Written by Ruth Silverman
The Ruthless Report 9: The Money Shot…and More
It was a September to remember for this intrepid physique-world reporter. The Olympia Weekend in Vegas at the end of the month was of course a major highlight, but 
I also got to travel cross country for a unique assignment at the Johnny Stewart Fitness Championships in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: recording an Olympia predictions video with eight-time Mr. O Lee Haney. More on that—and Johnny's fabulous event—below. But first a word about the absolute queen among queens of the 2012 IFBB Olympia competitions.
No, I'm not talking about Nathalia Melo, the newly crowned Bikini O champ, the third in the contest's three-year history. Or Iris Kyle, who won her eighth Ms. Olympia title, making her tied with Lenda Murray and that very same Lee Haney for number of wins. Or Adela Garcia, beloved fan and media favorite, who leaped to her seventh Fitness O win. No the number-one queen of the Olympia—and post-Olympia—court for 2012 was Ms. Erin Stern of Tampa, Florida, who took over the Olympia crown (again) from Ms. Nicole Wilkins and then repeated that achievement, just to make her point, in Mumbai, India, at the Sheru Classic last weekend. To top it off, she was knocking off a lineup of 18 at the Arnold Classic Europe in Madrid as I turned this in.
I ran into exuberant and radiant Erin and some of her equally exuberant and radiant friends at the famed Alligator Bar in the Orleans Hotel in the wee hours at the end of Saturday night after the Olympia. I was almost ready to call it a Sunday morning but decided to take a last pass around the bar to see who was still up. Not too many people, although Dan Ray was still breathing—but just barely. I was thinking I had sacrificed an extra five minutes' sleep for nothing when lo and behold, there was the new Ms. Figure Olympia, looking radiant, along with IFBB pros Chelsea Morgenstern, Michelle Blank and Jen Hernandez, who were busy charming a nice-looking guy from I forget where. More Diet Cokes all around. Erin suddenly remembered (or maybe it wasn't so sudden) that she had not yet posed for her annual photo with the giant jesters that loom over the front of the Orleans. What a good idea, everyone said, and soon we were off across the casino and out the front door with our cameras.
The ladies kicked off their shoes and climbed up to the big ledge where the jesters dwell. It's pretty high off the ground, at least it seem to me when I was up there doing interviews a couple of years ago. No big deal to this batch of figure and fitness athletes, who scrambled onto the pedestals and grabbed the colorful comics by their bells, depicting themselves in the throes of—well, whatever a woman who's grabbed a jester's bells would be in the throes of. It's a queen-and-her-court shot for the ages, for sure.
Another Queen
A couple of weeks before the O my friends at BOD-TV invited me to the Stewart Fitness shindig, a second-year NPC show with ambitions to stick around for a while. The event, a national qualifier, produced a bum
per crop of champions, but bikini winner Queenie Pe Benito was particularly impressive.
The petite nurse from Charlotte was making her competition debut, but you'd never have known it, as she took the stage with panache and easily won her division. The next day, during her beach shoot with LHGFX photographer Harry Grigsby, I found out what a plucky type she was off the stage as well. Born in Manila, Philippines, the 4'11", 94-pound Queenie came to the United States, to Charlotte, with her family when she was 10. At 24 she's the mother of a seven-year-old son, Alex—yes, a seven-year-old—earned a BSN from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte last year and hopes eventually to specialize in oncology nursing. "I have a very soft spot for cancer patients," she said.
In her immediate future is the NPC Nationals in Atlanta in November and a chance to get her feet wet in the babe-infested waters of pro-qualifying competition. Though she understands the odds, she is "superexcited." she said.
"Nationals is my second competition, and I'm still shocked that I was given the opportunity to compete with the best physiques in the nation. All I can do is perform my best and show everybody what I've been working hard for and let God—and the judges—decide.
Wherever Queenie finishes, you can bet she'll have given a commanding performance.
And a Bodybuilding King
Mr. Haney and I didn't do too badly in our preview of the ’12 Mr. Olympia competition—worth a view even after the fact for the TotaLee Awesome one's dead-on take on today's top pros (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdh43dTN2Gs&;feature=share). Earlier in the evening, while hanging with Lee and his wife, Shirley, I witnessed the evening's biggest moment of aw-w-w. Everyone was standing around the Sandow—Lee had one of his eight on view—and we were taking some pictures, when a small-but-steady voice cut through the chatter.
"Who won that statue?"
The chatter stopped, and everyone looked….down. "Who won that statue?" Four-year-old Jaylin Powell repeated his demand. The 5'11" Lee stepped forward, and the next thing anyone knew, Jaylin was getting an up-close look at Mr. Sandow and his scepter. Inspired, the toddler did what guys have been doing since time immemorial: He hit a biceps shot.
Cute as it was, I had a feeling it was not the first time the kid had performed that bodybuilding pose. Not long after Jaylin's encounter with Haney and the statue, his uncle, Joseph Powell, won the Stewart Fitness Men's Overall Championship, so it's safe to say it runs in the family.
Colorful Olympia Commentary
Always a pleasure to get to join Dave Palumbo and the gang for the RxMuscle.com wrap-up videos and get to give my two cents' worth. As the only woman in the group I often find myself coming from a slightly different perspective, especially but not exclusively when it comes to bikini. So I couldn't argue with Aaron Singerman's assertion and Chris Aceto's agreement that Nathalia Melo was the correct winner because if the women were all on the beach in Miami, she would be the only one, hands-down, who got any attention. In other words, the babe is hot, hot, hot.
While that's undeniably true, I would question whether the beach test is a criterion the IFBB judges actually consider. Also whether the judges, having chosen three distinct personae and bodies in the three years of the contest's existence
, simply haven't settled on one enduring champion yet. Maybe they just like the variety.
