Introducing the 2009 Ms. Megalympia!

Details: Written by Steve Colescott, the Guerrilla Journalist

The 2009 Megalympia Championships seemed to be a big hit with Rx Muscle Forum Members. They read about, debated and voted on 174 of the best bodybuilders from the past seventy years. The discussion was sometimes heated, with those that posted sharing personal stories, expert critiques and strong opinions on the merits and weaknesses of the top bodybuilders of all time.

Once the contest concluded, the overwhelming popularity of the Megalympia made two things blatantly obvious: 1) We will DEFINITELY have a 2010 Megalympia, and 2) People DEMANDED a Ms. Megalympia to determine the top female bodybuilder of all time!

Few people have as much respect for female bodybuilders as I do. When I first discovered the sport, through my older brother's stack of Muscle Builder magazines, I read them cover-to-cover, including Betty Weider's "Secrets to a Firmer Bustline" and Kiki Elomaa's leg and glute training program. (The results of that course of study speak for themselves). I read contest reports, athlete profiles and training features on the top women of the time and benefitted greatly from most of them.

Over time, my study of the sport of bodybuilding has fallen by the wayside so that I could more deeply study the science and practical implementation of training and nutrition programs. I still know some of the basics of the top Mr. Olympia competitors but couldn't tell you their favorite color or if they vote Republican or Democrat. My following of the female side of the sport diminished even more, and to be honest, I don't know all of the lower ranked competitors from the "post-Cory" era by name.

Still, these women impress the hell out of me. No website (or magazine, for that matter) devotes more resources towards the promotion and celebration of female bodybuilding than Rx Muscle. It pleases me to organize the Ms. Megalympia. Due to my gaps in personal knowledge of some of the great names in the sport, I will need the help of the forum members, particularly with the posting of photos of the athletes on the threads I will be starting (and sharing of any relevant info about the stars).

How will the contest be run? Well, if you are not particularly interested in technical details, you may want to skip forward six paragraphs. (Go on, I won't be insulted). I've learned a bit from the pros and cons of the Megalympia, so the female version should be much more streamlined. To start off, I used a mathematical scoring system to determine the top female bodybuilders since 1980. It is greatly simplified since the history is shorter and there are not as many alternate federations to consider. Basically the top ten placers in the IFBB Ms. Olympia earned points based on their placements. The top five placers in the IFBB Ms. International also received points based on their placements (half that of corresponding placements in the O). I also included points to the top ten in the 1984 IFBB World Pro Championships (although half the points as given to corresponding Olympia placers) due to the fact that this contest was the most heavily-stacked competition up until that time (as it was the centerpiece of Pumping Iron II: the Women). With the Olympia, it got complicated since there were years with two weight classes, some years having an overall champion, and some having two class winners. In the end, I feel the system does a great job ferreting out the top muscle-babes in IFBB history. After this, a few women were stricken from the list for refusing to sleep with John Romano back in the day. This should teach them not to cross Romano when he's ragin' (pun intended).

From here, I added up the totals of 126 competitors and ranked them in order. Some of these placings may surprise you. For instance, Laura Creavalle and Iris Kyle had over twice the score of Cory Everson due to the fact that they competed in sixteen and seventeen contests (respectively) compared to Everson's five Olympia wins. Still, she was only a few positions lower, so the top names should be well represented while those that consistently placed in the top six of numerous big shows were rewarded for their long-term impact.

From here, I will be giving you a list of the top 60 athletes. From those that made the list, but not the final cut, I will give you a list of ten women (based on popularity in magazine coverage) for you to pick two competitors to receive "Special Invites." This gets us up to 62 competitors.

We will be having six one-on-one voting rounds (ROUND ONE cutting the number of contestants from 64 to 32; ROUND TWO going from 32 to 16; ROUND THREE going from 16 to 8; ROUND FOUR going from 8 to 4; ROUND FIVE going from 4 to 2; ROUND SIX choosing the overall Ms. Megalympia Champion!

After ROUND TWO we will be having a Wildcard Showdown, giving you a chance to provide two of the losing competitors from the first two rounds with a second shot at Round Three.

One complaint from the men's Megalympia was that in some instances two all-time greats would meet in the early rounds, knocking one of them out early where they may have gone on to make the top eight or sixteen had they not encountered someone slightly better early in the competition. To reduce the likelihood of this, competitors will be seeded with the highest ranking athletes facing off with those lower in the rankings. I suspect there may still be some upsets here though, since much has changed in the sport since the eighties and the IFBB judges may not agree with the true experts on female bodybuilding - the Rx Muscle readers.

So line up a JoJo Energy Drink to wash down a couple ALRI Hyperdrive 3.0s, prop your feet up on that case of ProCard Nutrition Ecdy N7, and get ready to enjoy a look back on the best of female bodybuilding (was that a subtle enough plug for our generous sponsors, Dave?).

I declare that the inaugural Ms. Megalympia Online contest is now open!

FOR MORE INFORMATION and TO VOTE

COMPETITORS LIST:

6. Andrulla Blanchette

7. Dayana Cadeau

8. Valentina Chepiga

9. Kim Chizevsky