September 1, 2004

Winners' Circle: The 2004 Canadian Figure Champions

Last month, I talked about the 2004 Canadian fitness champions, and now this month, I’ll talk about the figure champions from this year’s CBBF national-level events.

Statuesque Nina Luchka was crowned the Tall-class winner at the 2004 Canadian Figure Championships in Brantford, Ontario. Nina is from Ontario. She is a beautiful woman who combines a good amount of muscle with excellent proportions and well-placed curves. She’s certainly in shape, but she’s still also very feminine looking; it’s no wonder men like watching her, and many women remark how they would like to be just like her. Nina didn’t win the Overall title, but many people I talked to after the show had her look picked as the "ideal" physique.

On the stage, nobody can miss Quebec’s Lucie Bergeron – she has a larger-than-life presence and more charisma than a squad of figure competitors put together. In a sport where the competitor stands in quite rigid poses, Lucie comes to life. She was awarded the Medium-class title, as well as an IFBB Pro Card. Lucie was ecstatic to win, even more so when you consider just how she got here.

From what I heard, Lucie only decided to enter the competition ten days ahead. You see, she is actually a fitness competitor (she’s the 2002 Quebec Provincial Fitness Champion and the 2003 CBBF Canadian Fitness Championships’ Medium-Class Runner-Up), and unfortunately, due to some complications, she couldn’t prepare for fitness the way she wanted in 2004. So she was out – until someone convinced her to enter the figure competition at the last minute. Now she is a national-level figure champion and a full-fledged IFBB Pro. Way to go Lucie!

While Lucie and Nina both made a strong impact, the night really belonged to Alberta’s Debbie Leung. Like many other women in the competition, Debbie is a former bodybuilder turned figure competitor, which shows in her strongly muscled physique. She won the Lightweight division of the 2002 Canadian BodyBuilding Championships. In 2003, though, she changed to figure and won the Short-class title in the Canadian Figure Championships (which were held in Edmonton), but failed to win the Overall title. In 2004, she returned, better than ever, and took home the Short-class and Overall titles, and an IFBB Pro Card as well.

Over at the CBBF National World Qualifier three other women became national-level champions, but unlike the winners in the Canadian Figure Championships, the winners of this event don’t turn pro. The CBBF National World Qualifier qualifies competitors for the IFBB World Championships, where they can pit their physiques against the world’s best.

The winner of the Short class was Ontario’s Trinh Tieu. Trinh’s strengths are her shapely physique – she has an absolutely miniscule waist – and her stage presence. She is one of the best figure "posers" in Canada. When she is backstage, or even just walking onstage, she doesn’t appear to exhibit anything special that singles her out as a winner. But then with one confident thrust of her shoulders she appears to "grow" right before your eyes. She has shape, curves, and beautiful sweep to her physique, and she shows it all off perfectly. When she won, the crowd roared with approval – she was an excellent choice.

In the Medium class was Shelly Yakimchuk of Saskatchewan. Like Debbie Leung, Shelly is a former bodybuilder, but this year she tried her hand at figure and, obviously, was quite successful at it. At the 2004 Canadian Figure Championships, just three weeks prior, she placed fifth. Rumor had it that the judges considered her physique "too hard." For the Qualifier she softened up just a tad and succeeded in winning her class.

Finally, there’s the Tall class that had, unfortunately, only one competitor – Melissa Tucker of Ontario. No matter how easy Melissa’s win was for her, she was a worthy figure athlete onstage. In ways, Melissa reminds me of a figure version of volleyball star Gabrielle Reece. Melissa is statuesque, lean, and very athletic looking; she would look right at home in a Nike commercial.

Unlike the CBBF Canadian Figure Championships, there was no Overall winner at the CBBF National World Qualifier; that was a new decision from the CBBF this year. My understanding is that they did it because the goal of the competition is to have a "team" of winners – the class winners – selected for the IFBB World Championships. There is no real reason to highlight just one ahead of another, since there’s no IFBB Pro Card awarded in this competition, and these competitors don’t compete against one another at the Worlds anyway. That seems to make sense. Besides, I’m sure that if the judges had been required to pick an Overall winner out of this competition they would have had their work cut out for them. All three class winners at the Qualifier were very good, but also very different. Everyone would have had their favorites.

With those two CBBF events taking place in July, that ends the national-level season in Canada. However, it doesn’t end the competitive season as there are still plenty of local competitions around the country. And, of course, there’s 2005, when the next champions will be crowned.

...Doug Schneider
das@seriousaboutfitness.com

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