More About the Arnold Amateur

I'm writing this article while flying home from a business trip to Germany. It reminds me of the time I went to Russia a few years ago to see the IFBB Men's World Bodybuilding Championships. When I flew home from Russia, I also passed through Germany and can very clearly remember how long that flight to Canada seemed – it felt like it was taking forever, just like this one. That's because it takes about nine hours to travel from Germany back to Canada, not including time to and from the airport.

A trip this long isn't just boring, but tiring as well. Furthermore, it can be downright exhausting when you factor in the time changes that result in jet-lag that’s so bad, it often takes days to recover. But what’s worse than just arriving exhausted and jet-lagged is when you arrive somewhere and have to compete, which is what usually happens when bodybuilders fly overseas for competitions. It’s not easy. In fact, usually the long trip takes so much out of competitors that, when they finally get to their destination, they are far from the peak condition they were in when they left home. I remember how many of our athletes hadn't yet recovered from the trip over to Russia when they had to first hit the stage there. As a result, most weren't at their best and no one did very well at that competition.

These journeys also bring to mind a much easier trip that I took in February, that I wrote about last month – it was when I went to the Arnold Amateur IFBB Bodybuilding Championships that are now part of the Arnold Sports Festival. The Festival is an annual event held in Columbus, Ohio, USA.

Getting to and from Columbus from Canada is a snap. For example, you can drive there from Toronto in about four or five hours. Or you can fly there in about an hour. As a matter of fact, for many Canadians it's probably quicker to get from their home in Canada to Columbus than it is to get from, say, Montreal or Toronto to Vancouver.

The proximity of Columbus to Canada is one more reason that I think that the Arnold Amateur will see significant growth in years to come. More and more Canadians will obviously rather go there than, say, Russia or some other place even further away. (In 2000, I went to Malaysia with Canada's team which took 30 hours of traveling time!) Obviously, more Americans and Mexicans will go to Columbus too, for the exact same reason. All in all, that could add up to a significant number of competitors from North America alone, and it doesn’t take into account those who will also be willing to make the trip from overseas to compete.

Furthermore, the Arnold Amateur gives many more North Americans the chance to compete against topnotch international stars with whom they would probably otherwise never get to share the stage. For example, José Carlos Santos, the gentleman who is featured on our cover this month and is shown in the picture to the right, is a multi-time world champion from Brazil, who also threw his hat in the ring at the Arnold Amateur event this year and won the Lightweight class. That picture was taken there.

However, if the Arnold Amateur grows, one question that might arise is this: What will happen to the IFBB's various world championship events that are held in often faraway places around the world?

In my opinion, the Arnold Amateur will probably have little effect on those events. Often, those competitions are held in Europe or Asia, where the IFBB attracts plenty of competitors anyway. For instance, in Russia competitors can come from all over Europe, no doubt because for them to get there takes really no time at all. The same sort of thing happens in Asia – tons of competitors come from the nearby countries. Therefore, in terms of the Arnold Amateur affecting the quantity or quality of competitors at those world-level competitions, I predict that there won’t even be a blip. However, as I mentioned, it could have quite a profound effect on Canadians who might have gone there, because Columbus is so much more convenient.

Furthermore, there have been less-than-subtle hints from the CBBF (Canada's governing body that's recognized by the IFBB) that in the future there may be even less support from them for the world events. In April, Garry Bartlett wrote an article called "It’s Time for a New Direction!" that was published on the CBBF.ca site. In it, he describes the heavy burden, financial and otherwise, involved in sending teams to the various world championships. He also goes on to say that, in his opinion, the Arnold Amateur might present better opportunities for Canadians, and that the CBBF might want to focus their efforts there. What he supports is clear and, obviously, since the CBBF presented this article on their own site, one can assume that they must be in support of this notion as well. However, this puts into question the future of their own CBBF National World Qualifier event – it’s the event that qualifies Canadian competitors for the IFBB’s world-level events. With this change of direction, what’s its purpose anymore? Right now, that’s not clear and only time will tell what will become of the Qualifier.

Given all this momentum that the Arnold Amateur has, it is not hard to foresee that it is going to grow significantly in the years ahead and become the international event for North American-based competitors. As a result, even though there was just a small group of Canadian competitors there in 2008, I predict that next year there will be plenty more – and you can be sure we’ll be there to cover it again.

...Doug Schneider, Publisher
das@seriousaboutmuscle.com

Doug Schneider is the publisher and chief photographer for SeriousAboutMuscle.com, BodyBuildingLive.com, and SeriousAboutFitness.com.