You don’t need me to tell you much about Miss world, the oldest-running international beauty pageant, there’s a couple of similar competitions for the other gender but the only thing that comes close to Miss world in terms of world wide popularity is Mr Olympia.
The International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness (IFBB) holds more than 2,500 competitions at the local, national, regional, continental and World Championships with the climax being the Mr Olympia competition.
Unlike Miss World pageantry, where contesters have to be slim and beautiful amongst other things to impress the judges, Mr Olympia contestants have well defined muscular bodies, large, intimidating and sometimes scary, they look so big that on a first glance, you will take their real pictures to be photoshopped images.
The body is literally built in the gym through years of resistance exercise of varying routines, backed up with an enormous protein diet spiced with steroids.
Another difference is that one person can contest and win Mr Olympia for multiple years.
The first ever Mr Olympia was Larry Scott, who won the competition in 1965 and again in 1966.
The second person to be crowned Mr. Olympia was Sergio Oliva, who defeated a young Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sergio went on a three year winning streak, 1967, 1966 and 1969.
Then Arnold Schwarzenegger took the crown from Sergio in 1970 and went on a 6 year winning streak, 1970-1975. Schwarzenegger went into acting, most of us remember him as an actor, but he came back to win the competition for a 7th time in 1980, before taking becoming a full time actor for good.
Another name worthy of mention is Phil Heath who had a straight 7 year winning streak, he won the Mr Olympia competition back to back from 2011 to 2016. The only person apart from Arnold Schwarzenegger to win the crown 7 times and he won his, seven years in a row.
For the GOAT in Bodybuilding, two names keep rubbing shoulders for the title. Lee Harney and Ronnie Coleman. Both had an eight years winning streak, Harney from 1984 to 1991, Coleman from 1998 to 2005.
The last two bodybuilders to win the crown are Shawn Rhoden 2018 and Brandon Curry 2019.
The 2020 edition is scheduled for mid Dec.
Some winners of the crown weren’t mentioned in this article, but that not an attempt to belittle them, we just had to focus on the biggest names.