HARD NEWS - REPORT FROM THE IRONMAN 2005

Held in Pasadena on a very rainy night, the Iron Man Pro lived up to its extremely high reputation. Man of the Night was Gustavo Badell, who told us he was carrying 12 more pounds of muscle since his third place finish at the last Olympia.

He was fuller, yet just as cut as he was at the O and his total package proved to be a little too much for an outstanding Lee Priest. Watch out for Gustavo at this year's Olympia where he could very well end up in second place right behind Ronnie.

I felt that Lee Priest was the best he has looked since he won the San Francisco Grand Prix several years ago. He had more thickness in his back and his arms were truly unbelievable. It is hard to see where he can find much more improvement weighing around 220 pounds, and at his height. The hamstring and glutes tie in was the best we have seen from Lee and his legs overall were quite outstanding.

Both he and Gustavo displayed excellent abdominal development, which is the icing on the cake for a top competitor.

Troy Alves took third place just edging out Melvin Anthony into fourth place. Both men displayed incredibly small waist lines and this is a trend which deserves to be better rewarded by the judges. Troy has great symmetry and is on an upward trend again so watch out for him to have more high placings this year.

Melvin Anthony at times looked like he could take the whole contest as he is so good at magnifying his strong points and hiding any weaknesses. In the symmetry round he tied with Gustavo Badell. Melvin went on to win the best poser award and this coupled with his similar award at the 2003 Olympia clearly entitles him to be classed as the world's greatest poser at this time. He did an encore posing routine at the show and this was entirely ad libbed as much of his posing is intuitive. He has a very rare talent.

King Kamali took out fifth place and also posed extremely well. I felt that King looked to be a few pounds above his best contest weight and as the season progresses he will no doubt place higher. His routine was as entertaining as ever.

Filling 6th place was King's great rival, Craig Titus. These two traditionally swap places as it is always very close between them. Craig also turned on a great posing display and was in excellent shape for this the first contest, the 2005 season.

In 7th place was the very tight physique of David Henry. He displayed excellent symmetry and outstanding condition. He is definitely a physique to watch out for in the future.

Filling 8th position in his first pro show was Mark Dugdale. Although one of the smaller guys, 8th spot in his first pro show was pretty good and his tight physique and his superb condition augurs well for the future when he becomes better known.

The biggest and heaviest guy in the whole contest, Ed Van Amsterdam from Holland, was unfortunately overlooked. Weighing over 300lbs, and with pleasing symmetry and good abdominals, Ed hardly received a callout. His posing routine was also innovative and I wished it had been a little longer. Although he wasn't ripped to shreds he was certainly not in poor shape as he displayed good muscularity and in my opinion deserved around about 8th place rather than the 13th position he received.

The FitExpo held in conjunction with the Iron Man event was a wonderful success and we plan to release a FIBO type DVD giving an overview of the whole 3-day expo.

I will later do a short report on the Iron Man NPC Figure contest when I have all of the details.

Until next month, keep pumping!!

Wayne