It’s Sunday, October 20, 2002 -- one day after the 2002 Mr. Olympia competition. I’m flying home via Chicago with the weekend’s events fresh in my mind. While I never planned to write much this weekend -- instead, letting pictures tell the story -- I don’t think that even great photos can tell you everything that happened in Las Vegas these last few days. So here it is: my final thoughts, as well as some interesting things that I noticed at this year’s event. One thing is for sure: The male bodybuilding competitors could certainly learn a whole lot from the female bodybuilders, except for King Kamali who had, by far, the most entertaining posing routine of the men’s competition. Kamali was not in good shape this year, but his innovative routine left one with a positive impression. No other competitor in as poor condition could turn things around for themselves as he did -- and that shows just how much impact the posing routine can have. What happened this year is nothing new. The art of posing seems to have become lost in the men’s quest for ultimate size. Most often the men’s posing routines followed the same formula. They start with some slow, syrupy music and go through some slo-mo poses and then midway the music turns to hard rock, rap, or hip-hop with the competitor simply wandering from one stage to the next, hitting the same few poses. Professional? Hardly. Boring? Unless the guy’s got an unbelievable physique that night -- yeah. It’s surprising really, given just how much time and money these men spend getting ready for a competition, only to neglect posing. As a result, when it’s their time to really show it off, most sell themselves short. Remember the part in Pumping Iron when Arnold and Franco visit the ballet coach? There’s a reason good competitors do stuff like that. Contrast the men’s routines with those of the women -- in particular, Juliette Bergmann, Lenda Murray, and Valentina Chepiga. Their routines were wonderfully diverse and professionally executed. The women didn’t need to wave their hands in the air, egging the audience on to cheer for them. The cheers just happened. And there are other things the men could learn from the women too: like how to conduct themselves on the stage during the prejudging round. Juliette, probably because she’s a judge herself, knows that the judges watch the competitors all the time -- even when they’re not being asked to pose or being directly compared to another competitor. Why? The judges are making notes and occasionally taking quick glimpses here and there to finalize their scoring. The relaxed time a competitor has still counts. Imagine what will happen to a competitor if a judge is doing a last-minute check on his first-, second-, and third-place rankings and he looks up to see one of the three standing relaxed with his or her belly hanging out and talking to the competitor beside him. Don’t laugh, it happens often! I watched Juliette closely as her class was being judged. Because she was the superior athlete in her class, she was not called out as often -- it was obvious that they had her in first place quite quickly. But when she stood in the line, she didn’t just stand there; Juliette was standing there posing -- meaning she made sure she was standing perfectly, accentuating her physique every time she could, even if she was not hitting formal poses. Lenda Murray did the same thing. Not only does this help if the judges happen to look at you; it also forces the judges and the audience to look at you even when they’re supposed to have their attention on someone else. On the flipside is our men’s champion Ronnie Coleman. Now don’t get me wrong, I like Ronnie and I had him picked for the top spot this year, even if some others did not. I feel that this year he was in his best condition ever. Nevertheless, Ronnie could do a whole lot more to secure his success as a winner. Like Juliette, Ronnie gets called our far less than most of the top-10 competitors. But what does Ronnie do with his extra time? He spends most of it standing with his hands on his hips, muscles relaxed, gut hanging out, and yawning -- yes, yawning! Actually, I’ve made a habit of snapping off photos of Ronnie in various stages of his yawns -- it’s almost a show in itself. What’s more, he doesn’t just do it during prejudging -- he yawned just before being announced the winner that night! Is he sleep-deprived? Perhaps -- but maybe it would be better if he took a few naps before the show. Does that hurt Ronnie’s placings? Based on the fact that he was the winner, you would think not -- at least that’s what I originally thought. But my insiders at the event tell me otherwise. From what I gathered, Ronnie certainly wasn’t the unanimous winner this year and, in fact, may well have been closer to losing his title than he and almost everyone else thought. Every moment a competitor is onstage counts. Then again, Ronnie is not the only competitor to commit such a sin; in fact, he could be doing much worse. As far as I can see, during the prejudging Flex Wheeler enjoys nothing better than standing around talking to whichever competitor is within earshot. Don’t these guys get enough time to talk to each other backstage? Perhaps they can start wearing microphones so we can get in on the conversations too. Now, let’s discuss something else that, this year, the women all had over the men: a V-taper. Guys like Bob Chicarelli and Chris Cormier like to talk about their "X-frames" -- and certainly these men have more taper and greater flare than many of the professionals who have bellies larger than half the guys at a chili cook-off. But you don’t hear champions like Juliette and Lenda bragging about their X’s, V’s, T’s, and A’s or whatever. Juliette and Lenda are so exquisitely shaped that it just shows without being said. The shoulder-to-waist tapers of Juliette and Lenda are astonishing -- and they know it. Certainly, this has a lot to do with genetics, but it’s obvious they train for it and pose with it in mind. When they each first walked onstage, they hit poses to accentuate their dramatic tapers and the crowd responded with a roar. This is a part of physique building that is getting lost in this modern-age of male athletes carrying way-too-much weight than is good for them -- in more ways than one. I suspect that the great Frank Zane and Vince Gironda would see much to admire in those two women’s physiques too, and the day that some of these guys realize bigger is not always better (particularly with your stomach), will be the day they get better placings!
Finally, let’s touch on that nasty topic of Synthol -- something one writer (I forget who, sorry) hilariously dubbed the "Silly Putty of bodybuilding." While everyone claims not to use such a hideous creation, once again I saw far too many competitors with the oddest-looking muscle deformities that I have to ask: If it’s not oil in there, then what the hell is it? I’m not going to name names, but here are the body parts that I thought looked rather conspicuous at Olympia 2002: shoulders (most often); triceps (tied for second most often with…); calves (for those that don’t have them, I guess, and never will now); biceps (fill ‘er up!); inner thigh just above the knee (now that was a new one!); and lats (can you imagine what that looks like?). In fact, I noticed something really strange this year. Between the morning and the night shows a few competitors appeared to, ahem, go for a fill-up on certain body parts -- and it was not subtle, nor did they look any better for it. Here’s what I can’t figure out: the stuff looks downright foolish since the muscle takes on a rather deformed look and loses all definition. From what I can see, it also appears to cause damage to the muscles on some competitors. I certainly hope that the IFBB does something about this; but on the bright side, even if they don’t, I have this feeling that many of the better competitors are now seeing just how ludicrous it is and the use of Synthol will die a slow death -- none too soon for me. Now, let’s get to the biggest things that happened (quite literally) for a more positive finish to what was, in fact, a pretty grand time. Gunter Schlierkamp doesn’t exactly have a name that rhymes with anything catchy, so I’ve just been calling what happened on Saturday night the "Gunter Phenomenon." And the full impact of it never really reached me until this morning when I was running to catch a plane with my friend Garry Bartlett. It was when Garry said that he’d "never seen a crowd cheer for a man like that in 15 years" that I realized Gunter’s accomplishment and how his presence made the 2002 Olympia such a relevant event. Gunter has always been a crowd favorite, constantly cheered on by the audience and supported with boos when the judges screw him out of a top-10 placing (until this year that seemed to be a given for him). But when he emerged from behind the curtain in 2002, the Gunter-hype was different -- and bigger! The crowd roared to life to a point that it was deafening -- and they kept on going. No one, and I mean no one -- not Coleman or Levrone or even Kamali after his fantastic routine -- came close to the applause and support that Gunter received. Heck, when Joe Weider was handing out the participation medals to each competitor I thought the crowd had gone to sleep; but it was like a bomb going off when he got down to Gunter’s place in line. His support never declined; in fact, it hit a fever pitch by the end.
So what accounted for all the Gunter-love last night? I think it has to do with a few things. First, he was undoubtedly in the best shape of his life -- good-enough shape that some even felt he should take the title from Ronnie. He was reportedly 300 pounds, making him the biggest guy at the show. While it’s hard to know if that was really his weight -- many of the competitors seem to like to embellish it -- we’ll just have to take their word on that one. What I can verify, mind you, is that he was rock-hard from head to toe. Geez, he had striations on his glutes -- try that at weight of three Susie Currys. He was good -- no, great! -- but I still had Ronnie ahead of Gunter even though I did notice Gunter managing to outmuscle Ronnie in quite a few poses -- sometimes even to the point of making Ronnie look small! Gunter was not necessarily good enough to take first place, but after the posedown that night I felt him good enough to be runner-up to Ronnie. Second, Gunter’s got charisma. As almost any woman will attest, the guy’s got great looks. And I’ve always seen Gunter with an ear-to-ear smile. He lit up the press conference a few days earlier with his wide-eyed explanation of his acting and modeling efforts. Catch him walking through the hallways and he always has a larger-than-life, confident look on his face. And on the stage, he looks and acts like a true professional -- in much the same way that Juliette and Lenda do. That’s, at least, part of what helped last night. But there’s more… For the three years that I’ve been coming to the Olympia in Las Vegas, I’ve never been more impressed with a competitor’s rapport with his fans than I have been with Gunter’s. Now anyone who knows me knows that I can’t say that about all, or even many, of the so-called pros in our sport -- some of whom seem to have such a sour attitude toward their fans that I wonder why anyone would stand in line for them. But Gunter’s the exception to the rule, and I believe his years of consistently treating his fans with respect and acting like, get this, a gentleman has paid off. His fan base has grown and this year they paid his hospitability back with their support. So while I think that many of the men could use some lessons from the women, I think that everyone could take some lessons from Gunter Schlierkamp. From my perspective, he represents a tide of change in men’s bodybuilding -- a long overdue one, in fact. So don’t go calling Gunter the "Uncrowned Mr. Olympia" or anything like that. In 2002 he was crowned the Fan’s Champion by everyone in attendance and that’s probably more important to him than anything. Signing off from Olympia 2002. ...Doug Schneider
Return to "My Trip to the 2002 Olympia" index.
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When Gunter graciously received his
fifth-place trophy he was rewarded with not one, but two standing ovations! The
only other time the crowd stood up that day was to go to the bathroom and to leave at the
end of the show.
