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January & February in The Forest Gym
Well, we are into a new year and the gym membership is starting to rise as everyone thinks about weight gains over Christmas and spare flesh to be removed before those long hot summer days — these remarks are for the benefit of our Mediterranean members, of course. Paul “George” Martin, Danny Poole, Danny Savage, Mike Freeman and Wayne Stafford are all going to compete this year as well as powerlifters Dave Webb, Rich West, Steve Hardy, Justin Read and Steve Iles. Harold will be doing the IFBB British GP, of course and he is planning to do at least one other Pro show — but where? There is such a sparcity of events in 2005 that doing anything is challenge. And he still has to resolve the matter of his passport and his citizenship.
Karen Marillier has talked of retirement but like a great operatic diva will go on for another year before absolutely deciding to retire — perhaps. But why should she? She looked great at the GNC Show in Atlanta last year — see the picture on the right — and should have placed higher than 7th. The big problem this year is that there are no contests of any kind for professional women outside the USA and we all know that judging of any foreign competitors in the USA is always a problem. The IFBB has a problem anyway with women bodybuilding competitors because they cannot make up their collective mind about the rules. Just before Christmas Jim Mannion issued a memo to all female bodybuilding professionals instructing them to reduce “the amount of muscularity by 20%” for “aesthetic and health reasons.” “All judges have been advised of the proper judging criteria.” This particular piece of impractical gibberish has probably got more to do with George Bush’s anti-steroids drive than it has to do with female bodybuilding.
Some of the amateur women training in The Forest Gym will compete this year but the details are still to be sorted. We have more women training seriously than we have had in many a year.
Lots of our members seem to be suffering from colds and flu at the moment. I suppose it is inevitable that if we have masses of sweating bodies — some sweating more than others — in the gym, any bug that gets in is likely to do the rounds fairly quickly. How many flu bugs does it take to make a hardcore bodybuilder miss a workout?
We have had visits in recent weeks from EFBB Overall British Champ, Paul George — enthusiastic as ever, looking bulkier but still pretty hard — and Marius Dohm. Marius is feeling depressed about his competition performance last year and is considering a return to South Africa. Don’t do it Marius. Get your finger out and aim for the top. This could be your year. Marius is only 23 and last year won the East Midlands Qualifier, placed 5th in the EFBB British Finals as a HW and 4th in the EFBB British Amateur GP. There are many guys who have not done that well after 10 years of competition. Marius has terrific potential and it will be realised more readily in the UK than in South Africa. As I said a few months ago, he has the frame to easily carry another 20 kg of muscle and then he will be almost unbeatable.
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