Ms I 1999
By Jabber
Bodybuilding

As I said before, after I let out the expletive about the standing room only
arrangement at the prejudging, I did realize I did get quite close to the
front for some good pictures, even if it was a bit to the side.  About the
only problem was I didn't get too clear of leg shots of most of the
competitors.  But that's okay because 1) I personally am not a leg man,
their upper bodies were unobstructed, and 2) most of the fbb's didn't have
good calves. :-)  Sad but true.

Again, these placings come from GeneX's review, but of course the comments
are 100% -jabber generated. :-)  I heard of one discrepancy in the placings
that I'll mention when I get to it.

In 19th was Cathy LeFrancois.  Ah, last but not least.  She's a very cute
package who looked a bit outclassed here, but not much.  Her best feature is
her thick forearms, which I think weren't as thick as usual due to her
dieting.  A couple folks said watch out for her new hairstyle, which was
strawberry blonde.  Cute and flattering, but far from as attention getting
as her flame red long hair when she showed up in the audience at the NPC
Nationals.

In 18th place was Yaxeni Oriquen, who I'd understood had some troubles
getting there in the morning, and so forth.  Gee, did that piss off the
judges?  She appeared large and had exquisite upper body proportions.
Unless smiling, she can appear a bit harsh facially.  I've seen her better,
and I'm sure so have the judges.  That I believe is the key.  If the judges
have ever, EVER seen you better than you appear today, that's going to
penalize you, regardless of the competition.  And I still don't know what's
with Yaxeni's Christian style music deal.  Unfortunately, placing out of the
top 10, we weren't privy to a full-length routine from the great Ms.
Oriquen, that indeed is worth the price of admission.  Strangely enough, her
calves started to look a bit better than I'd seen previously, just a bit,
but her legs do lag compared to her upper body.

In 17th place was Paula Suzuki, who the judges never seem to like.  Is it
just me, or do I see her doing a concerted effort to try to bring her legs
up to par sizewise with her upper body?  She's probably had the greatest
disparity of anyone between huge upper body (some think too huge - if you
don't like a breathtakingly huge back) and small legs.  She always does have
great definition to her legs though.  Some of the best glutes and she needs
to show her abs more, as they are quite formidable in contest shape.

In 16th place was Monica Martin, who evidently felt she needed a streak of
purple hair to get noticed. :-)  By me, that wasn't necessary, and I think
the judges didn't notice.  She's very well balanced and sexy, but her
biggest competition came from her superior condition at the Jan Tana, when
she was egregiously overlooked.  I like Monica's attitude on stage and cute
jock walk.  Others have that, too, but on her, it's just, more noticeable.

In 15th place was Iris Kyle, who won the NPC USA to get her pro card.  I
found her body simply outclassed here.  While I find her far from the most
attractive fbb, part of her beauty comes from a full-length routine that
blatantly emulates the great Lenda Murray's style (right down to the lacking
calves :-) ).  Seriously, we didn't get to see Iris' full-length routine,
which is perhaps her most impressive point of interest.  Thus folks who
haven't seen her before were probably baffled at her placing above a couple
veterans.

In 14th place was Betty Pariso, who appeared quite thick and muscular.  Her
biceps weren't as lacking as they were at the Jan Tana (what was up with
that? :-) ), but her symmetry was a bit off.  But on conditioning only (she
was incredible and very hard looking) I felt she should've gotten higher.

In 13th place was Melissa Coates.  Love her or hate her, she is attention
getting.  Going from hard to soft back to hard again, ah, her biggest
competition came from herself at former shows, where quite frankly, she blew
the doors off the '99 Ms. I Melissa Coates. :-)  In talking to her after the
show, she said she wouldn't be surprised if she got last place.  I guess she
was very pleasantly surprised.  In her favor, regardless of off or not, her
upper and lower body are fairly evenly matched (even if she's always known
for her biceps).

In 12th place was Susan Myers.  If I'd known she placed this low, I would've
let out some expletives here.  This woman has incredible symmetry, muscle
definition, muscle maturity, and size all over, especially her biceps.  Her
biggest faults at this show were a way-too-light tan (but anyone could see
she still was muscular as hell - sheesh, judges!) and a slightly softer
overall physique than most of the competitors.  But I think her biggest
competition came from the memory of the shredded, ripped Susan Myers of yore
that would've kicked the proverbial ass of the '99 Ms. I Susan Myers.
Still, she was short-changed, big-time. 

In 11th place was Dayana Cadeau, who if you get over her stupidly large
breast implants, has a nice amount of thickness.  Plus she actually has some
decent sized calves.  I still find her way ahemoverratedahem...

In 10th place was Jitka Harazimova, one of the most gorgeous fbb's ever.
Since I'd seen a taping of her at FIBO recently that depicted that she
indeed is packing on the mass and gaining some much needed muscle maturity
(her chief problems) considering her young age, I was surprised she came in
not much bigger than I previously remembered.  I would've liked to see her
crack the top 6, but she, like a couple other competitors, came in better
for the finals than the prejudging.  I think if she presented her evening
show look at the prejudging, she would've done much better.  But she's
young, and has time on her side.

In 9th place was Amy Pazzo.  There was a discrepancy as I'd heard from
another source that she placed 8th.  In any case, this was the first time
I'd seen her in person.  I was impressed with her thickness and muscle
maturity in her back.  I'd known she had great biceps, but evidently all
that heavy lifting in the off-season is paying off for her.  I see a great
future for her, as she's fighting hard to be not just another forgettable
blonde fbb, and IMO winning that fight.  One criticism of her is that dieted
down, facially she's not attractive (while off-season she's quite cute).
Well, she sported a new hairstyle that tried (reasonably successfully) to
soften her hard dieted down look.  Here's someone who's thinking.

In 8th place was Laura Binetti.  I personally like Laura's look a lot.  Most
folks feel her traps overpower the rest of her physique, but except for
Tazzie Colomb, Laura probably had some of the best legs (thighs and calves)
of the show.  And, as with the '97 Jan Tana, some of the most creative
posing was witnessed during Laura Binetti's compulsories (where she does
single rear biceps before hitting a front double biceps shot - interesting
but great for the camera!).  Laura also battled with previous incarnations
of herself, which were even larger and harder than her '99 Ms. I look.

In 7th place was Denise Masino, who, arguably, is difficult for me to be
objective about. I probably know her best out of all the women at the show,
and she looked phenomenal.  But were there 6 there who were more deserving?
Probably.  The 6 who DID place higher?  No. :-)  She showed great upper body
width, pretty good symmetry between upper and lower body, excellent left
bicep peak, and better conditioning (simply look at her abs) than a couple
of her previous shows.  I'm not exactly sure what she should do to place
higher (other than trip the competition the day before the show :-) ).
  
In 6th place was Gayle Moher, also a hometown favorite from nearby Gahanna,
Ohio, a suburb of Columbus.  Although originally from England (and with a
charming accent), she is considered the hometown girl at this show.
Although Gayle has great symmetry and presents a very attractive package, I
just did not see her getting top 6.  While with others, their previous
better condition appearances came back to haunt them, evidently the judges
conveniently forgot Gayle's marvelous condition and appearance at the Jan
Tana.  I like Gayle, but this was a gift, she should not expect gifts like
this to continue.

In 5th place was Andrulla Blanchette, a personal favorite of mine and
charming young lady.  But that doesn't mean diddly unless she has the body.
And I found her condition just great for this show.  She combined extreme
mass with a ripped defined look quite well, IMO.  Some said her legs weren't
up to her upper body, maybe, but I didn't find the symmetry issue that
noticeable.  At the prejudging, she was the ONLY competitor who, after she
hit the shot (say back double biceps), she angled herself so that folks from
the side could revel in her glorious physique.  Almost like she "knew" the
-jabber was there taking a pic of her. :-)  She was so massive, it possibly
accentuated her appearing to be one of the shorter competitors, her only
possible fault, IMO.

In 4th place was Tazzie Colomb.  Others have said this was the biggest
travesty of the show, that she didn't win it, that it was her show, and so
forth and so on.  You know what?  I'm really not "upset" with who won, but I
would've had no problem if Tazzie got the win here.  Her condition and upper
body thickness (previously she could appear a bit lanky EVEN though she's
quite heavy and muscular) was superb.  Her classy new hairdo (braids not
unlike what we see adorning Laura Crevalle in the off-season) added to her
international appeal and look.  She, indeed, was a hot package, with the
mass and impeccable preparation to back it up.  Arggh, I, too would've loved
for this to be "her" show.  She had better calves than the top 3 by a long
shot (although I think Laura Binetti could've given her a run for the money
there), Tazzie's one fault is not as violent of a peak on her biceps as the
top 3 girls (that's the best way I could describe it).

In 3rd place was Yolanda Hughes, who, indeed brings a classy polished
physique, to say the least.  She, too, has looked better in the past AND
looked better at the finals than the prejudging, but this seemed to hurt her
less than the others who I felt fell into the same syndrome.  Interestingly,
the top 3 women were all black, all with somewhat to very lacking calves at
this level, but all quite polished and conditioned.  I would've liked to see
what would've happened if Yolanda came in at her all-time best condition, if
her 3rd place finish would've been more deserved.  No way was she better
than Tazzie, sorry...

In 2nd place was Lesa Lewis, a very classy looking competitor, perhaps
exuding more cool class and confidence than nearly anyone (except maybe
Lenda Murray).  If only her calves were better...  The meat on her upper
arms could challenge Laura Binetti, and except for her slightly thick torso
(at least her front abs were defined though), uh...  hmm...  I'm finding
symmetry problems with the 2nd place winner?  Ah, she's someone I'd LOVE to
have seen win the show, but with a couple shortcomings, I understand why she
didn't.  Some folks complain that she doesn't do enough muscle poses in her
posing routine.  Uh, that's what the compulsories are for.  Just kidding, I
too would like to see Lesa show more of her claim to fame, which is not her
cool demeanor, but her muscles.

In 1st place was Vickie Gates, from my current hometown of Dallas.  Ah...
wicked arms and possibly her best condition and showing to date, I wasn't
terribly "upset" with her winning the show...  but...  She, too, didn't have
the calves (nor the thighs) to match her upper body.  She did have great
thickness to her chest and overall upper body size and definition (back and
shoulders in addition to those tremendous arms).  But...  Last year, I made
a prediction (that I'm sure someone is laughing his or her head off about).
I said Ronnie Coleman will never get the Mr. Olympia because he just doesn't
have the symmetry.  I think Flex Wheeler kicks his ass in proportion.  Well,
obviously the powers that be thought otherwise, and the rest is history.
I'm thinking I'm seeing this "first couple of bodybuilding theme here with
Ronnie Coleman (the boyfriend of) and Vickie Gates".  

Ronnie and Vickie may be great role models (something this sport may sorely
need), really nice and genuine folks (I know Vickie is a very nice
individual), and possibly the hardest working couple in bodybuilding, but I
feel from a judging standpoint, that's totally irrelevant.  There's no way
female bodybuilding is going to be embraced fully and completely by the
masses (although it can be more 'accepted') so they might as well give up.
Storybook stories are fine, but the best most deserving female on stage
"that" day was Tazzie Colomb, but just barely.