Held in the Eldon Leisure Complex in Newcastle, England on 12^th October this prestigious annual event enjoyed its all time record number of competitors at a massive 145. What a day it was from the start of Prejudging at 9.30am, a short break before the show commenced at 6.30pm, and then finishing our equipment take down at 11.30pm.

There were 11 different classes at prejudging including the brand new over 50s Masters Class.  The Masters Over 40 was of course as strong as ever in both numbers of competitors and quality.  The older physique stars never seem to fade away!

The evening show had the top 6 pose from every class plus overall pose downs for the Amateur Mr. Universe title, and a Pro-Am Contest with judging of the Professionals and Overall Mr. Pro-Am all “live”.

There was also the pose down of the 2 Miss Figure Class winners for the overall title.   

THE MEN

PRO-AM and PROFESSIONALS

In a way the Pro-Am winner was really the Pro Universe winner as Gary Lister, the English Pro-Am winner, was entered in the Pro division.  The runner up was Sergei Ogorodnikov of Russia and third was the Overall Amateur Mr. Universe winner, Costantino Galeazzo with Federico Focherini of Italy 4th.  I thought that Sergei, now calling himself Sergio, was a trifle lucky to place in front of former IFBB Pro & past Amateur Mr. Universe winner Focherini.  Lister was a popular and impressive winner being a local lad from the Newcastle area.

I would like to have seen the top 6 Pros announced on stage separately in their final positions as only the top 3 in the Pro-Am were announced.  With so many competitors to consider, here are my thoughts on those who most impressed me.

MASTERS OVER 40

What a battle between a very young looking Rob Van Der Dussen of Holland, John Citrone at 59 and Terry Fisher. (John chose to enter the over 40 class rather than the over 50s).  This is the order in which they finished with last year’s winner Terry Fisher probably being a little unlucky to finish in 3^rd place.  But John at 59 is simply incredible. He holds the record number of NABBA titles.

MASTERS OVER 50

Ian Lawrence of Scotland bolted this class in with a decisive victory.  Ian was overall Amateur Mr. Universe back in 1975, and I can remember recording his victory on super 8 film as if it was yesterday.  I can recall seeing him compete in the late 80s as a Professional and not since then, but once a champion, always a champion.  It was all still there, size, condition, fantastic abs – the complete package.  Rainer Ollgren of Finland was 2^nd and it was a rare treat to have a NABBA competitor from that country.

JUNIORS

This class was dominated by the 2 young Brazilians who ended up 1^st and 3^rd respectively.  They were Eduardo Correa and Ricardo Da Costa.  Both were shredded and with superb abs.  2^nd from South Africa was a very promising Marius Dohne.  Huge potential for the future from this guy and a name to watch. It was larger class than in recent years.

MEN’S CLASS 4

My home city of Adelaide, South Australia, almost had its first ever Mr. Universe winner in Nick Jones.  Nick placed 2^nd by 2 points from Italian winner Dennis Giusto.  Nick’s 3 first place votes almost clinched victory for him this year.  The title will be his in the very near future.

Nick has possibly the best back in the whole competition and his condition was superb.  The Italian had bigger arms and legs but not the fine condition displayed by Nick.

Over the last 13 months we have been shooting much video footage of Nick in the gym during many actual hard core workouts, guest posing and finally posing poolside in Las Vegas on Olympia Sunday.  In the next few months Nick’s new video will be released and titled “Road to the Universe – Nick Jones”. We will also have a nutrition seminar video on Nick as he is a brilliant speaker.  That will make 3 videos on Nick, as we have already released GMV-356.

 He has his own supplements company based in Adelaide called Gen-Tec.

MEN’S CLASS 3

This was another convincing victory for the massive Edson Prado of Brazil.  Edson has size to burn and is also very symmetrical.  But he was not hard enough to be a real threat for the overall title.  I was sorry to note the synthol in his biceps.  In general terms, judges quite correctly are marking “synthol polluted physiques” down by a few placings.  The more obvious the synthol, such as in deltoids, the worse it looks, although it looks bad in any muscle group.  I guess the users will get the message that synthol is not a legitimate part of bodybuilding and lower placings will result.  Possibly even disqualification some time in the future if this blight on world bodybuilding persists.

In 2^nd place was the rather slight, aesthetic and ripped physique of Hassan Al Saka of Syria.  Hassan nearly missed the prejudging but a call to the hotel saved him.  Hassan is coached by famous Syrian bodybuilder of the 70s, Kassem Yazbek who was  famous for his “abs”.  With a little more size, Hassan can win this class.

Former class winner Billy Jones was in great shape and only got placed 5^th, such was the even standard in this class.

MEN’S CLASS 2

This class went to a brand new physique star from Eastern Europe in Sergiy Dukhota of Ukraine.  He had a massive, brutal type physique and edged out current Mr. World Giuseppe Cozzi of Italy.  Close behind in 3^rd place was Dutch star Sami Ben Otman.  Sami was born in Tunisia and has enormous potential and charisma.  He is probably Holland's top amateur physique star and I predict will win this class in the near future.

 MEN’S CLASS 1

Italy keeps on turning out brand new physique stars.  This time it was Costantino Galeazzo who went on to win the overall Amateur Mr. Universe title.  Costantino had a superb package of size, muscularity and symmetry.  He also posed well forcing the brilliant Austrian Walter Lettner down into 2^nd place in this class.  3^rd was the huge Eli Hanna of Israel with his humungous 25”arms.

THE WOMEN

NABBA has led the way in Figure Class competition for women bodybuilders when in 1986 they split them into 2 categories, physique and figure.  Since then the Figure class has been refined and fine-tuned such that it has become far more popular than the Physique Class.

For example, this year they had 18 women in Figure Class 2 (short), 18 in Figure Class 1 (Tall) and 6 in Miss Physique.  Figure Class women are bodybuilders but they are smaller, leaner, and more elegant.  Too much size is marked down within the differences between the 2 categories of Figure and Physique and no clenched first posing is allowed.

The IFBB/NPC in USA have fairly recently instituted the Figure Class and when they add a third round, the free posing round, then this brilliant class will be enjoyed worldwide and have much greater appeal than just rounds 1 & 2 with endless comparisons.  Let the audiences in USA see how well figure champions can pose such as Giovanna Rosa, Simone Moura, Popi Tsintari etc and many more.

 MISS FIGURE CLASS 2

 This year a very lean Tatyana Kovalko of Belarus finally won this class.  She has been in the top 3 or 4 for some years and had the package the judges wanted in 2002.  I felt she was too lean and I much preferred the fuller, healthier look of runner up Sylvia Ferreira of Brazil with the beautiful Simone Moura of USA (Brazil) in 3^rd place.  We subsequently did a video and photo shoot with Simone in Las Vegas on Olympia Sunday.  

Romina Paoli of Austria came in 4^th with an incredible physique, superbly conditioned and probably the best posing routine in the whole figure section. She is a future winner of this class.

MISS FIGURE CLASS 1

This proved to be another resounding victory for the fantastic Italian, Giovanna Rosa.  She has it all, a lithe, muscular body, symmetry, good looks, charisma plus a wonderful posing routine.  Giovanna later went on to win the overall Miss Figure title making it 4 overall titles in a row.  She is a superstar!  Can anyone beat her in NABBA?  It seems that each year she is better than the year before. I would like to see her one day in the Figure Olympia.

Second was sensational newcomer Popi Tsintari of Greece.  She was hard yet feminine with a wonderful combination of size, sex appeal and muscularity.  Last year she was World Champion in the Superbody Class.  Third was Claudia Casalini of Italy.  She looks very similar to Giovanna in body type and is a NABBA World Champion from 2001.  I loved her unusual posing style and superb routine. 

The very sexy Brazilian Patricia Mello dropped to 5^th place after her recent 1^st at the Worlds in Greece. This was partly because her posing routine was mostly dance with very few muscle poses as such.  She also needs more size in the legs and then she will be even more sensational!

Current Australian and South Australian Figure champion, Lorraine March, attained a very creditable seventh place in a very tough class.  You can see her on GMV-341 in a feature presentation.

MISS PHYSIQUE

Only 6 competitors this year, with the top 4 all very close, showing lots of size.  However, it came down to a battle between NABBA veteran competitor SANDRA WATERSCHOOT of Belgium and new girl CLAUDIA BIANCHI representing Israel.

Sandra is always in great shape and will surely win this class in the future.  However, Bianchi had the total package, great size, good muscularity and separation, plus a pleasing symmetrical look to her physique.

MARYSE MANIOS from France has won many titles while DESIREE DÜMPEL of Holland shows great potential.

 MISS FITNESS

Last but not least, there were 4 quite terrific fitness competitors. Zelda Latimer of UK won this class and had a hard, athletic look, feminine yet nicely muscular with a top class routine to match.  In 2^nd place was Jane Prado of Brazil, wife of Edson.  Her routine was high-energy aerobics but not quite a traditional fitness routine. But the crowd loved her and I hope she will be back again next year.

Now back to the editing of these videos……….

For the complete Universe results see our RESULTS SECTION.