World Men Bodybuilding Championships

2009 WORLD MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIPS


THE FIRST DAY IS OVER
by Andrew Michalak

download results in pdf format

This year’s IFBB World Men’s Championships in Doha, Qatar, attracted 167 competitors from 75 countries. On Tuesday, November 3rd, they started their battle for medals and trophies. Despite the lightest class, up to 60 kg, all other categories had full semifinals, with 15-25 athletes in the line-up, so elimination round were needed to select the top fifteen in each category, who advanced to the semifinals.
The biggest and strongest teams came from Egypt (many 2008 world champions), South Korea (two 2009 World Games winners), Qatar, Brazil, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Middle East countries (Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan, Iran).
What is new on the bodybuilding map of the world, participation of much more countries from Africa and Central Asia. First time Africa is represented not only by strong bodybuilding countries from the North: Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, but also by its “black middle”: Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania and super quality team from South Africa. Central Asia shows its athletes from Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Mongolia, India.
There is also a very complete representation of North America (Canada, USA, Mexico, Bahamas) and Central America (Nicaragua, Guatemala, Venezuela, El Salvador). Adding Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Mauritius, Sri Lanka), we can say that bodybuilders from all over the world came to Qatar to participate in this year Championships.

The semifinal battle involved comparisons, which was necessary to determine who entered the top six finals in each category and who finished the contest in places from 7th to 15th. The list of the finalists has already been announced, so 53 athletes are happy and are doing their best to improve their condition till the finals and combat for the medals. The finals will start on Wednesday, at 15:00, after the IFBB International Congress, scheduled for morning hours. Both events will take place in the modern Al Majlis hall of the Sheraton Doha Hotel.
Among the defending champions we can see: Anwar El Amawy (60 kg); Mohamed Osman (70 kg); Hussain Jasim (75 kg); Kamal Abdul Salam (85 kg but now 90 kg); Ali Tabrizi (90 kg but now 100 kg) and Mohammed Zakaria (100 kg). Not all of them are in the top condition, same as a year ago, so we can expect some changes on the top. There are many serious challengers, former world champions: Igor Kocis (75 kg); Hristomir Hristov (80 kg), El Shahat Mabrouk (85 kg now +100 kg); World Games winners: Chang Soon Boo (75 kg); Lee Jin Ho (85 kg) and continental champions: Dimitar Dimitrov (+100 kg), Vyacheslav Makogon (70 kg), Tomasz Blaziak (70 kg), Adam Cibula (60 kg).

My general impression is that the average quality of the athletes are higher than in the past years and it would be extremely difficult for the last year’s champions to defend their titles. Especially, that many of them moved to the higher weight categories and display bigger but not so hard muscles.

As usual, World Championships are accompanied by numerous meetings, banquets and less or more official discussions in which bodybuilding officials can exchange their opinion on various matters. Among the top influential IFBB officials present at these Championships we can see: IFBB President Dr. Rafael Santonja, IFBB Vice-Presidents: Albert Busek, Paul Graham, Dr. Eng. Adel Fahim, Continental Federations Presidents: Sheik Abdulla Bin Rashid Al-Khalifa (Asia) and Alexandre Pagnani (South America), IFBB Medical Committee Chairman Dr. Bob Goldman, Arnold Classic promoter Jim Lorimer, Qatar Bodybuilding and Weight Lifting Federation President Gen. Mohamed Yousef Al-Mana, Asian Federation Executive Vice-President Ibrahim Kafood, all three European Federation Vice-Presidents: Vladimir Dubinin, Pawel Filleborn and Jose Ramos, as well as many National Federations Presidents.

IFBB has been in the continuous process of transformation and modification, entering new sports and categories (children fitness, wheelchair bodybuilding, new masters classes), new events (regional Olympic Games, Beach Games) and exploring new media possibilities (life webcasts, TV broadcasting, DVD production, weekly Newsletter). This activity should bring the IFBB into a new level and open new possibilities for our physique sports in the first half of the XXI century.

all photos by Pawel Kleineder









































































































































































































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