2009 Olympia Blog

While not strictly Olympia news, per se, I thought everyone might like to know that Jay Cutler just beat Ronnie Coleman again today at the 2006 IFBB Austria Pro Grand Prix!

Click here to discuss this on the forums!

Click here for the official European Grand Prix schedule.

Here are some photos of several of the Olympians, just days after Las Vegas - off first to Graz, Austria to compete in the 2006 IFBB Austria Pro Grand Prix on October 6th, then the 2006 IFBB Romania Grand Prix on October 7th, and then off to Amsterdam in the Netherlands to compete in the 2006 IFBB Holland Grand Prix on October 8th (this Sunday).

Markus Ruhl & Dennis James in Austria 2006 with Promoter Daniel Hoelzl.

Ronnie & Jay in Austria 2006.

Mr. Olympia’s Abs!

Photos provided by Wolfgang and Raymond Cassar at Muscletime Magazine (Muscletime.com).

Hey everyone, I think it needs to be mentioned how incredible the respect is amongst the Olympians.

There was no trash talking or anything like that, apart from some which was just in good fun, nothing malicious at all, a site to be seen indeed.

It also needs to be said how great Jay has been in conserving the legend which is Ronnie Coleman, he has all along said how he is the best Mr. Olympia of all time, and how right he is, and how much he deserves credit for it.

Well done to Jay and Ronnie, both great champions.

Congratulations to Zachattack43 for being one of the BodySpace members who won 2 VIP tickets to the BSN & Bodybuilding.com Olympia After Party!

UPDATE: Zachattack43 responds: “Thank you, thank you. I loved it. VIP is the only way i wanna roll from now on!

Thanks,
Zachary Adkins”

Now that things have settled down a bit since the Olympia, we can now take a look back at a subject that I wrote about in an earlier blog, and that is the Saturday night show’s production. And as I expected, the show production was much better this year, thanks in part to the co-hosts Bob Chic and Shawn Ray.

This year, the show started right on time as Bob and Shawn came out right at 7pm and got down to business. They spoke for a bit as we got our first sample on how the night would be. I must say I was impressed with their presense. Bob came out and gave a quick intro as Shawn kept more quiet and threw in a few comments. It almost seemed early on that Bob felt comfortable on stage with the mic, and Shawn was a little nervous. However, they both quickly got on the same page and everything was smooth together.

The first competitors that they brought out on stage were the figure ladies. Bob and Shawn introduced them all and each one of them came out and hit a few shots. One competitor was hitting a back shot when she accidently unhooked her top! Luckily she was facing the other way to save some embarassment. This got the most crowd reaction in the figure event, even though it was still small. As far as production, this section of the show was smooth. The transitions betweeen competitors was quick and easy. Nothing too complicated here, just calling out each name as they came on stage for a few minutes. Once all of them were done, they filed backstage to get ready for the two-piece round.

Without any BS between rounds, Bob and Shawn stated that we would now start the posing rounds for the men. And unlike previous years, they actually started when they said they would. Each of 15 (of 22) competitors came out and did their posing without a hitch. The music, the intro’s, and the commentary was perfect. Not too much was said by Bob and Shawn except a few small comments and the introduction of the men. This is almost the opposite of what has been done at other competitions where after each posing routine, the host would try to make a joke or tell a story. There is nothing wrong with this, but at times it can get repetitive and non-humorous.

Without boring you guys with the rest of the shows details (you can look at Richard’s review below for details), I will just continue to say what a great job that was done this year. Between commentary of the hosts, the transistions between atheletes, and the down time between rounds, the show was flawless. Taking out all the unnecissary junk (like the challenge round), it enabled things to work this well. I would like to send out a big thank you to Bob, Shawn, AMI, Weider, and all others who helped make this show a sucess. It was great for the fans and great for the sport. I really hope that they continue this path in the following years.

I had a great time at the 2006 Olympia Weekend, and hope everyone else did, too.  Here is my review of the 2006 Olympia Weekend, enjoy!

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/2006olympia_review.htm

The BodyBuilding.com art department did one great job on the new wallpapers for the Olympia.

Here is a sample of the Jay Cutler wallpaper for your computer. And there is another of Ronnie. Great photos too (OK, I shot them!)

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/wallpaperoftheweek.htm

I took a lot of pictures over the weekend at the Olympia Expo, so I thought I would post a few of them up here for ya’ll to see… Enjoy!

View from the entrance.

Phil Heath and Jay Cutler (Future and Present)

Me and Bob

Stone Dragon Models

Champion Nutrition Models

Wow, we have thousands of 2006 Olympia pics online!  (I didn’t believe it until I started counting!)

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/2006olympia_pics.htm

Still more are on the way, too.  Check ‘em out!

Being my 3rd straight year going to the Olympia and the Expo, I had a new gameplan comapred to the previous years. This would be the first year that I planned to go both days.

I arrived to the LVCC on Friday around 10:30 or so with some friends of mine, and were amazed at the size of the expo. It seems like it keeps getting bigger and bigger each year. Because the expo was downstairs this year, it allowed more room for the vendors to try and one up each other with booth size and attractions. We quickly decided to start on one side and go up and down each row… although we kept getting sidetracked with free giveaways and sexy fitness models. We spent most of the day just walking around getting the free stuff while I took mental notes on the booths I wanted to visit again later that day when my friends left, and also the following day when I took most of my pictures.

Instead of writting about every booth I visited, I will just give an overview of my favorites and least favorites at the expo:

Favorite booths                 

Scivation/Primaforce                 
This was one of the first booths I visited while at the Expo (both days) for many good reasons. First, it was towards the front side where we started each day. Second, I wanted to meet all the faces of these comapnies like Chuck, Derek, and Layne, which I did meet and talk with. They were all super nice and were glad to meet their customers. I even enquired about Chuck’s diet services which he is well known for, and this is something I might take advantage of. Finally, one of the real reasons I stopped by was because of the great deals they had on their products. I purchased some Xtend and some Substance WPI for a great price! They even threw in a free shirt, a free book, and a free gym bag. How cool is that!?!

BSN             
Even though I dislike how big their company is and how overpriced some of their products are, I must admit that they did a great job with their booth at the expo this year. Almost everyone at the expo had one of their shiney bags in hand with a ton of free goodies in the bag! I believe when I finally went through my bag, I had free samples of every product they make from Syntha-6 to No-Xplode to True Mass to Cellmass. They even had free stickers, magnets, and pens! Also, to my surprise, I was actually able to talk with one of their representatives about some of their products. Being how busy they were, this impressed me a lot. I even got a 4 serving sample of one of their newest products, Endorush, which is supposidly stronger than NO-Xplode! I can’t wait to try it out for my next wrokout.

Bodybuilding.com           
One of my favorites from the past turned out to be a present favorite as well. With models like Christina Lindley and Fawnia Dietrich working the booth along with IFBB pro Bob Cicherillo, this booth was a must see for any fan at the expo! I stopped by both days in order to get a chance to meet everyone and it was worth it. I talked to Christina for a bit, and then got to pose with Bob (and his championship belt!) for a picture. They also had some laptops set up so that you could sign up for their website to get a free shirt. This year they were promoting their latest craze, BodySpace. I believe with their current marketing and word of mouth, it is only a matter of time until this thing gets huge. Some other companies were promoting simliar sites to BodySpace, but with bb.com’s size and power, they clearly stand on top of all the others. Great job this year bb.com!

Vyotech         
Not only was Vyotech’s main booth stacked with Pro’s like Melvin Anthony and Bill Wilmore and some hot models, but they had 2-3 more smaller booths in the expo hall! This may sound like overkill, but it wasn’t. Their main booth had great giveways as they were promoting their new goat whey… yes, GOAT whey. I’m sure you will be hearing much more about this new whey in the coming weeks. Also, they had a brand new motorcycle on display that they would be giving away on Saturday afternoon. I didn’t win it, but I made sure to enter as many time as I could throughout the day. As with the previosu booths I mentioned, the Vyotech booth stayed on course with all the cool features, including the most important, friendly and helpful representatives. This is what sets a good booth apart from the great booths. Even the “only there to look good for the crowd” models knew their products. Way to go Vyotech… you guys keep impressing me with good stuff.

MuscleTech                 
This is going to sound a lot like the BSN review above, but it applies to MuscleTech as well. I don’t really care for thier overhyped and over advertised products, but they had one my favorite booths in the expo. Even though their giveaways and customer reps were lacking, they made up for it with the quantity of athletes at the booth. I got a chance to meet Jay Cutler, Chris Cormier, Gustavo Badell, and King Kamali. Also, Phil Heath stopped by and was chatting with Jay, so I was able to snap some pics with the 2 of them together (the current Mr. O with a future Mr. O). The lineup of atheletes is what set this booth apart from the others. With Muscletech’s bankroll, I am glad they could bring all their athletes out to meet the fans during the 2-day expo.

Least favorite booths                 

ThermoLife       
I know that some people who attended the expo will disagree with me on this choice, but hear me out. Yes, I did like to look at the almost naked models standing in front of their booth, but it did cause a lot of problems. For one, I was afraid to approach their booth because the models were being swarmed by people taking pictures and it seemed like the booth reps were more consered with watching the girls too rather than helping people. Secondly, the girls were standing out in the aisle, which caused a huge traffic jam to the already packed aisles. My suggestion would have been to put the girls behind the table (inside of the booth) to help with traffic. They had the right idea with the girls to help promote their booth, but it was poorly executed, and caused more damage than good for the company, IMO.

LVCC Food Court     
I was actually looking forward to getting in a meal at the expo this year, because last year was so good. In the food area last year the LVCC served up griled chicken breast plate with a sweet potato and vegetables. This year was different, and disappointing. The choices were a hot dog, a hamburger, and a chicken sandwhich, all served with french fries. They also were serving beer throughout the expo. This is a health and fitness industry event, who wants to buy that grabage? After spending all day promoting health and seeing all these fit people, who wants to eat fried food? Not me! I was very upset, and had to resort to eating free protein bar smaples for lunch. Hopefully next year will be better.

The whole time, I was all for Ronnie Coleman to win his 9th sandow and to make history.

But when I showed up for the pre-judging, and when I took a good look at Ronnie & Jay it look like Jay was bigger and and more defined than Ronnie Coleman was.

But in my heart I wanted Ronnie to win, but Jay Cutler brought his “A” game to the Olympia this year and conquered the stage, maybe because Jays hair was on the line.  Jay well deserved to become the new officially crowned 2006 “Mr. O”.