1999 NPC South Padre Island (Fitness)
By Jabber



Oftentimes, at this small of a show, you can't expect much.  But I was
pleasantly surprised.  Being this IS South Texas (with its high
concentration of women of Mexican descent), remember my crack about further
sub-dividing the fitness women between brunettes and blondes in my last
review?  Well, there was something unheard of going on here.  Four of the
five women in fitness were brunette!  No problem for the -jabber (slap!  ow
that hurt :-) ).

In 5th place was Tinna Villa-Real, the one lone blonde competitor.  South
Padre, like most of Texas, seems a friendly place.  So it would be impolite
to do a huge -jabber boo here.  But I was tempted.  This was a gorgeous (and
Hispanic) woman, tall with large thighs, tan, and strong-looking.  It was
humorous, at both the prejudging and finals (in which her props included a
top hat and cane), they goofed and started the wrong music (she probably
provided a confusing cassette for the show - two songs, not one, the same
one, on both sides).  At the finals, the MC (personable humorous guy, sorry,
didn't catch his name) said to Tinna (as she was waiting patiently for the
right music to be cued up), "Hey we don't mind, you're cute to look at."
Man was that an understatement.  

In 4th place was Isabel Gonzalez who competed in the finals with a broken
thumb (that she broke during the prejudging).  That's a trooper; the MC
joked she broke her thumb fighting him off earlier. :-)  The audience
rightfully clapped when she did a straddle press (held for a long time) on
her fists.

In 3rd place was Judy Barragan, one of two crowd favorites (i.e. brought
large cheering sections).  Another very attractive young Hispanic woman
(isn't there some redundancy there?), she had distinctive braids in her hair
toward the front for a unique hairstyle.  Bodywise, most of these women were
not nearly as muscular as NPC USA competitors for example.  In fact, most
simply looked like fit women when milling around the audience, not overtly
muscular (Tinna's thighs and another's midsection notable exceptions).  So
the strength they exhibited on stage was perhaps more unexpected?

In 2nd place was one of two Jessica's, Jessica Gomez.  Yet another very
attractive young brunette Hispanic woman - and no, I'm not getting bored
with this trend. :-)  An energetic and cute routine that simply got a bit
overshadowed by the other Jessica.

Winning the class was another crowd favorite, the wildly popular Jessica
Sosa (you guessed, a VAYBHW).  What set her apart, possibly was an
incredibly sexy routine (Enrique Iglesias music indeed got a HUGE work-out
that evening :-) ), but more importantly, she had abs that I deemed gave her
just about the most remarkable body I saw at that show (the winner of the
bodybuilding was perhaps more remarkable - but certainly not in the abs).
Ridges seen 100% of the time while relaxed.  All the more remarkable
considering although she wasn't as skinny as some of the others (cute
thickness), she wasn't defined anywhere (especially when viewed wearing
ordinary street clothes later); except for those abs.

Sitting to the right of my friend were two boys probably about 16 years of
age.  They seemed pretty transfixed, too. :-)