The men took the stage last night to kick things off for the 2010 NPC Nationals. The bikini competitors’ prejudging went on after the men and lasted under a a hour. There is no mess’n around at a National level show. Things are run very quickly, efficiently and without delay.
This morning women’s prejudging will begin at 8:30 am EST with the bodybuilding. If the weigh-ins were foreshadowing of this morning’s competition, this will be a very competitive show. The Figure women will take the stage immediately after the bodybuilding. I look for that to start around 10am. I have high hopes for the Figure at this show. There were a number of women who have tremendous potential and could make an immediate impact on the pros.
Last year’s winner Erin Stern came out of virtually no where to win the overall. Could there be another woman do the same today? Possible. Follow along on here as I update you throughout the day. You can check out my photos from this morning’s prejudging at FLEXonline.com. We’ll be posting photos from each class immediately after they finish.
8:15 am
Getting settled into my seat in the press pit. Sitting next to Jeff Blinn who is shooting for MD and Mark Mason who is shooting for Bodybuilding.com. Both guys are cool to chat with and if there was a mic in the press pit, it would be an amusing but disturbing bit of sound bites. Both guys helped me out by lending me compact flash cards. When shooting JPGs and RAW files (camera geek speak) the cards fill up fast. Since FEDEX SUCKED a big one at delivering my cards on time (despite paying for overnight shipp) I didn’t have the size of cards needed. Blah blah. I’ll shut up. Let’s get this show a rock’n!
9:00 am
Reception in the venue on my phone sucks. Updating will come this afternoon.
11:30 am
A few people approached me and said I was too hard on the bikini division and others thanked me. At least I know people are reading HARDBODY. HA! I’m sure I will be wrong on a number of placings when the finals are announced tonight. Just because you are in the middle at the end of the first callout doesn’t mean you will win the class. There were some women in the bikini division who looked good so not saying it was a total bust. Again only my opinion and compared to other shows this was the most lackluster turnout for the new division.
2:00pm
Prejudging went well. Very quick as expected and given the number of competitors the judges and staff did a great job. I was impressed with the female bodybuilders. A number of women looked like women and it was probably the best group of female bodybuilding I’ve seen in quite some time. I said to one fellow photographer that if female bodybuilding looked like it did today I might have more of an interest in it. Great job overall by the female bodybuilders in this show.Â
Figure women were large in numbers and the top five in each group was solid. Some classes were better than others but that’s how it always goes.
It was nice to get a break before the finals. Time to recharge batteries in camera and the life batteries for round two.
Follow along on TWITTER.com as I tweet my top picks as well.
