Canada Has Seven New Pros!

Every year, thousands of Canadian bodybuilders compete and many of them dream of becoming an IFBB pro. However, that dream isn’t realistic for most, since only a handful of competitors turn pro in a given year – usually just two men and two women based on their performance at the annual CBBF Canadian Bodybuilding Championships. This year, however, seven new pro bodybuilders emerged from Canada, six from the CBBF Canadian Bodybuilding Championships held September 6 in Montreal (an unprecedented number from that show), and one from the IFBB North American Championships held August 30 in Cleveland.

Of the six pros crowned at the Canadians, four were men. The first choice was Ontario’s Ben Pakulski, the super-heavyweight winner and overall winner at the CBBF Canadian Bodybuilding Championships. We featured Ben on our cover last month with a photo I took at the 2007 IFBB North American Championships, where he placed second in his class. I wasn’t able to attend the Canadians this year, but all the pictures I’ve seen indicate that Ben was a clear winner at that competition.

The other three men who turned pro were Gregory Ulysse (heavyweight winner), Mboya Edwards (light-heavyweight winner), and Javier Martinez (light-middleweight winner and over-age-40 masters lightweight winner). Gregory is from Quebec and has won national-level class titles three times before. He was also a class winner in 2001 at the IFBB North American Championships. Mboya Edwards is from Ontario and has previously won his class four times. Javier Martinez resides in Ontario and has won national-level class titles three times before. From what I saw in the pictures and based on their past performance, they’re all deserving to turn pro.

Two women turned pro at the Canadian Championships: BC’s Athena Siganakis, the heavyweight and overall winner, and Ontario’s Johanna Dejager, the middleweight and over-age-35 masters winner. I had never seen Athena compete and I believe this was her first stab at the Canadian Championships. To win the whole thing to become the 2008 Canadian Women’s Bodybuilding Champion was quite an accomplishment. On the other hand, I had seen Johanna Dejager compete many times before. Johanna has won the CBBF National World Qualifier numerous times and she was a runner-up at the IFBB World Championships in 2006. The picture to the right was taken at the 2008 IFBB North American Championships where she was the second runner-up in the middleweight class. Johanna has a long and accomplished competitive career that’s now been topped off with an opportunity to turn pro.

Quebec’s Marc Lavoie came out of nowhere and surprised everyone by showing up at the IFBB North American Championships and winning the heavyweight class, the overall title, and the over-40 masters category too. The judging panel, which was primarily American, had never seen him before, but they were more than impressed with the way he looked – after prejudging, he was the talk of the show. Following the finals, when he was crowned the 2008 North American Men’s Bodybuilding Champion, the folks who run the North Americans told me that Marc was the first male bodybuilder to win the masters and overall titles at that competition. That’s an incredible accomplishment and is why we featured Marc on our cover this month.

To the best of my knowledge, the CBBF never explained why they gave out six IFBB Pro Cards this year. As I said, there are usually only four, sometimes fewer. But with all the competitors this country has, I think it was a good thing to have six. Add to that Marc Lavoie’s accomplishment at the IFBB North Americans and you have seven new pros, which is an unheard of number in Canada. Congratulations to all of these fine competitors – we’ll be looking forward to seeing how you perform on the professional stage in the future.

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

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