2000 Emerald Cup (Fitness)
By -jabber


Not of any great interest to me, but ironic, nonetheless, this show is only
one of three with a "men's fitness" portion.  During their strength round,
which consisted of who could do the most two-arm push-ups in 2 minutes, I'd
mentioned to Steve Wennerstrom, and a couple of others, that Min Kim would
slaughter these guys.  The one who won it, did 100 in the two minutes (don't
remember or care to remember his name), but the bad thing was, they had a
different "judge" judging form and correctness for each competitor.  This
guy didn't use proper form, with his lower body basically stationary, and
him only moving his upper body up and down.  As I said, Min would've
slaughtered him. :-)

As usual, the fitness women included two classes, short (over 5'3") and
shorter (up to and including 5'3").  There was almost no discernible
difference in height between these two classes to me.  What was refreshing
to me, was, to my unscientific eye, there was a much lesser percentage here
of fitness competitors sporting the supposedly necessary implants so many
fitness women sadly get.  And it was a classy and beautiful field, indeed.

Up to and including 5'3":
In the shorter class, we had in 5th place redhead Dawn Greene from
Marysville, WA.  In 4th place was blonde Kimberly Martinez from Medford, OR.
In 3rd place was Viko Newman from Olympia, WA.  In 2nd place was Kelli
Packard from Kennewick, WA.  The judges did a good job of picking a
deserving (and implantless :-) ) winner, muscular, hard, perfect back,
Denise Maffioli from Las Vegas, NV.  Definitely the best, she also had a
superb tan, kind of the skin that you might see on a tan redhead - a bit
unusual.  Stellar routine that I actually partially remember, too (that's
unusual for me).

To me, honorable mention goes to a very cute and thick (and powerful
looking) Melissa Joslin, hometown girl from Bellevue.  I've got lots of pics
of her from the show.  As an aside, because I was in the front row left for
the fitness, front row center for BB prejudging, and elbowed my way to third
row left for BB finals, I noticed/caught myself doing something a bit
different at this show.  While I still took pics of just about all the
competitors, I found myself focusing on more pics of the ones I found most
attractive.

Curse me all you want, I'm human - at least I'm trying to keep the review
fair. :-)

Over 5'3":
In 5th place was blonde Alexandria Stewart from San Jose, CA.  In 4th was a
lightly muscled blonde, Vicki Morrow from Bellevue, WA.  This was a very
boisterous, positive crowd, always cheering on the hometown girls
resoundingly.  Of course, IMO, hometown doesn't always equate to good, but
so what.  But it's nice to see folks excited about the second best fun to
watch sporting event (fitness) - of course you know what's number one,
right?  Read the next section of my review to find out.

In 3rd was blonde Jenny Lynn from San Leandro, CA, and in 2nd was the judges
first goof of the night.  Not a goof worth booing over, not worth losing the
-jabber vocal chords over (unlike the next night :-) ), but debatably, the
best competitor Kiersti Zenker from Puyallup, WA was announced 2nd.  She had
a great routine, and would've been more a challenge for the overall than fan
favorite Sei Ryan from Bellevue, WA.  In Sei's favor, although skinny, she
had some pretty neat biceps though when seen up close. :-)

Rightfully so, shorter class winner, Denise Maffioli kicked Sei's butt
without breaking a sweat to get the overall decision.

Honorable mention in the over 5'3" class was Lisa Maree Hall-Dixon from
Bellevue, WA.  A very attractive brunette without implants, she was just
artfully thick all over.  Just watching her stand, looking at her upper back
was captivating.  During her routine, she captured some ohhs and ahhs for
doing the double-jointed thing that we've seen from Stacey Simons in the
past.  Can't really be considered a fitness maneuver but it's still oh so
interesting to see (moving the hands from behind the back to over the head
to the front while hands are locked together).  She did a couple other
flexibility maneuvers that left the rest in the dust, too.

A very attractive and nicely-thick lot of females.  On to the even more
impressive physique-wise...