NPC Nationals 1998
by -jabber
Notables in the audience...


Ah, life in a big city located in the Deep South!  The next morning, bright
and bushy tailed - and after a continental breakfast at our hotel, we
headed off to the Sydney J. Marcus Auditorium in the Georgia World Congress
Center (sheesh, and me without my tie?), and joined up with a female friend
of mine.  I'd previously been to Atlanta to see the 1993 or 1994 Ms. O
(can't remember) and it was held at the Civic Center.  To me, this lobby
was a bit more crowded in its setup, although the entire GWCC (for short)
was quite large and had plenty of room.  

As usual, the general admission prejudging was not as crowded (although
only $20) compared to the finals.  For the money, however, we got nearly 6
hours of mind-numbing entertainment!  For what it's worth, the prejudging,
to me, was more crowded than many other shows I'd been to.  Before I go
into the actual competitors, let me go into a couple notables that I'd seen
milling around at either the prejudging or the finals.  

Well, arguably the highest caliber female there was Andrulla Blanchette. In
viewing her from afar (she hung out with her friend GeneX - author of that
review I'm disagreeing with :-) ), I'd seen tremendous exposed forearms and
traps.  Her dress clung tightly to her very thick upper body quite nicely. 
She appeared sexy, classy, down-to-earth, yet worldly all at once.  I
cannot fathom anyone not liking her, sorry.  And after meeting and talking
to her, even with her success, I also detected a sense of innocence, not
unlike how she must've been back at 19 years of age (I'd seen a then and
now pic of her that impressed me in AAWA-land a while back).  

Enough high praise!  I also spotted and said hello to Denise Masino and her
husband Robert, who Debra and I had met back in early June when we flew
down to Ft. Myers for a photoshoot.  It's always good seeing them.
Unfortunately, we didn't really get a lot of time to discuss anything about
the magazine Muscle Elegance this time though.  Denise was curiously quite
covered up, but there was no denying some serious muscle there.  But she
doesn't need to show her muscles to gain attention with a face and sexy
brown hair like that. :-)

Sheesh, am I schmoozing too much here?  Also of note (as always) was the
huge Kim Chizevsky who only showed up for the finals.  Hooligan found it
hard to believe I recognized her only from a back view of her blonde hair!
Our Bethany Howlett also showed up in her traditional 'alone' mode (guess
she can't get any guys to date her? big ha!) in a leather jacket and
sunglasses (interesting visual there).  But later on when I saw her in
sleeveless attire, there was no denying some hugely serious off-season mass
there (but not as off-season as Annie Klepacki was at WSE).  

One person, who was quite interesting, who I'll admit I didn't recognize
(but GeneX's review helped me out here) was Cathy Lefrancois.  She had
flame red hair that could be spotted miles away!  A she sported a very
well-balanced muscular body and I found her longer hair more flattering.
But I'm not sure about that color though - other than it being extremely
attention-getting...

Also of note was Christine Envall from Melbourne, Australia.  Her mass
takes a back seat to no one, being one of the most massively muscled women
you'll ever see.  But her attitude seemed exceptionally sweet and she
seemed quite self-assured considering this was her first trip to the US
(the first of hopefully many - we like you here in the States Christine!)
and without hubby (who was minding the house, according to her :-) ).  As
thick and heavily muscled as her entire body was, it was her huge thick
calves that almost overpowered the rest of her body!  While curiously, many
muscular females don't have calves that much bigger nor muscular than say
'average' women in good shape (although the fbb's calves may be more cut),
that cannot be said about Christine.  Even Bob, Nicole Bass' husband was
nearly speechless when he viewed Ms. Envall's legs (and Bob's rarely
speechless!).