2011 NABBA Universe Report by Wayne Gallasch with help from Alex Mac.
Held in Southport, UK on October 29th, the 2011 NABBA Universe was again a very tightly fought contest in every single class. At the end of the day the 2 overall winners were as follows: Overall NABBA Amateur Mr. Universe: Paulo Lima Santos - Brazil Overall NABBA Figure Miss Universe: Maria Kuzmina - Russia
Changes this year included the new class for women called Toned Figure. Classes Miss Physique and Professional Men were discontinued. Our thanks to Alex McKenna of The Beef Magazine for the photos. alexmac.biz
Most interesting for Australia was the placings of 3 of our top champions. Jodie Howard won Trained Figure Class 2, making her our first Universe Class 2 winner since Terri Roberts in 2001. Anne-Marie Lasserre won Figure Class 1 several years ago, but had to settle for 2nd place this time against Maria Kuzmina of Russia. Anne-Marie is the current Overall Miss World Figure Champion.
In the Men's Class 2 the current Mr. Australia Abraham Elzaibak had to settle for 2nd place to a slightly more defined and conditioned Dave Guest of UK. Several months later Abraham won his IFBB Pro card and was standing on stage next to Branch Warren! How quickly things can change.
In the Overall posedown it surprised some people when the winner of Class 4, Paulo Lima Santos of Brazil - took home the top award as Overall NABBA Mr. Universe for 2011. It is quite an achievement to take the Overall from Class 4. The main Class winners were as follows:
MASTERS OVER 40 Nortom James Murayama - Brazil
MASTERS OVER 50 Dave Steele - UK
JUNIORS Emmanuel Knabben dos Martyres - Brazil
MR. CLASS 4 Paulo Lima Santos - Brazil
MR. CLASS 3 Tony Mount - N. Ireland/UK
MR. CLASS 2 Dave Guest - UK
MR. CLASS 1 Jiri Borkovec - Czech Rep.
MISS FIGURE CLASS 2 Jodie Howard - Australia
MISS FIGURE CLASS 1 Maria Kuzmina - Russia
MISS TONED FIGURE Maria Tereza Mendonca Pintya - Brazil |