End of the Bronwyns Way.

 

My first international competition took place on the 30th of June, the World Cup 2007 Bulgaria “Dionysopolis.”

When I competed in 2006, I was very disappointed by the backstage atmosphere and not some judging manipulations that took place. I swore that I would not compete anymore. But you know how it is – once you try it you cannot stop.

The problem was that there was no opportunity for me to compete on the national level this year. But than a miracle happened. I received a very unexpected invitation to compete abroad. I decided to accept it but to keep it secret not being sure of anything. I ran low on money that time and also had some appendix trouble.

But I overcame all obstacles and I flew to Varna (Bulgaria - Eastern Europe) with my fiancé. I was so excited and happy. The flight was very good with nice weather and the people from the Bulgarian organization were waiting for us at the airport to take us to Balchick, a small city about 20 miles from Varna. That was the place of the competition.

The hotel complex we stayed in was very nice too. The sea shore was near, just about ten minutes walk down the cliff. All the food was provided by a restaurant right next to the hotel swimming pool. The organizers made a deal with the hotel that all competitors got a diet contest prep food at the restaurant – boiled chicken with rice. However I skipped the rice and had my rice cakes.

There was an athletes presentation during the evening of the day we arrived there. The music was given in and the competitors numbers were handed out. I got number 14. When I saw the other girls I was embarrassed. There was a real world class quality there, most of them had medals from the European or World championships, not to mention multiple national titles.

I spent rest of the evening taking pics by the seashore and the cliff. Than we went to relax in the hotel room. We were picked up at 1 p.m. by the organizers the next day and they took us to some theater where the competition would take place.

If you ever want to try to compete in an event where fitness, figure and female bodybuilding is combined, go to Balchick. It was really strange but there was only one class for all women mixing figure, fitness and FBBs together. That was criticized by some. I did not care. It was a huge learning experience for me and I knew ahead of time it would be like this. However I did not expect such a difference in the level of competitors. Some women were really BIG.

There were three rounds in the semifinals – quarter turns on high heel shoes, posing routine (fitness or bodybuilding all mixed), mandatory poses again with high heels on. I did get one call out. After the semifinals we had a one hour break. I spent this time with other girls, mainly with those representing Slovakia. The atmosphere was great and all the girls were very friendly.

The organizers told us that all of us will participate in the finals, not just five or six of us. So all girls experienced another three rounds in the finals – quarter turns on high heels with a night dress on, posing routine (not really expected to be performing posing routine twice) and mandatory poses on high heels plus the call outs.

The winner was a bodybuilder from Netherlands – Viviene Hylkema. Second was a Bulgarian champion Miljana Tevilova and third was a Slovakian world fitness champion Silvia Malachovska. I think the judges had this about right. I placed eight out of ten competitors, but I was one point behind sixth and seventh (they tied for points). It made me feel good by loosing to them by just one point I was considered a threat to them while even the sixth and seventh competitors had previous medals from international competitions.

After the competition we were taken back to the hotel and had an after party. Before we left for the airport the next day, we still had some time to make some more pictures at the seashore.

It was a perfect weekend for me and a perfect show. The organization was very good even though there was a slight language barrier (a lot of people speak only Russian there and not English and that includes the people at the airport, too.) The main thing was the great atmosphere. I never felt this good competing. No stress and not bad feelings. We had a lot of fun backstage with the other girls and I made some new contacts there. I hope I will stay in touch with those people and I hope I will have the opportunity to compete in such a great show again!

Post by: Bronwyn