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Home  News Policky Pummels Field in Pro Debut!
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Policky Pummels Field in Pro Debut! |
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Written by Steve Wennerstrom
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Friday, 23 February 2007 |
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WOMEN'S BODYBUILDING
HEAVYWEIGHT:
1. Heather Policky **
2. Kim Perez
3. Brenda Ragonot
4. Mah Ann Mendoza
5. Helen Boushard
LIGHTWEIGHT:
1. Toni Norman
2. Cathy LaFrancois
3. Vickie Nixon
4. Gayle Moher
5. Angela Debatin
**Overall: Heather Policky
POLICKY PUMMELS THE SACRAMENTO FIELD IN PRO DEBUT
There is an age old adage that you only have one opportunity to make a first impression, and in Heather Policky's case, the 2006 USA champion left a major impression on a panel of judges and an enthusiastic audience that had gathered at the Crest Theatre for the Sacramento Grand Prix. This February 24th event served as a mini-preview of the upcoming Ms. Internationaal next week in Columbus as four of the contestants in the field of 14 at this event took an opportunity to try out their routines and gather valuable opinions as to their progress in reaching prime condition for the Arnolds Sports Festival Weekend. Promoted by the west coast duo of Jon Lindsay and Steve O' Brien, the Sacramento event gave the women's side of the sport an additional competitive opportunity with $6,000 in prize money and two qualifying spots made available for the Ms. Olympia. An added perk was that the promoters offered weight classes with lightweights (under 135 pounds) and heavyweights (over 135 pounds).
TONIE NORMAN SCORES A STUNNING UPSET IN THE LIGHTWEIGHT CLASS
After a morning prejudging that saw Cathy LeFrancois make her season debut a bright one, the concensus of opinion among the sports cognoscenti was that she was poised to grab the lightweight title with relative ease. As a former winner of the lightweight class at the 2003 Ms. International,   LeFrancois gave the figure division a try with a less than satisfying result. After a rush to return to bodybuilding competing at the 2006 Atlantic City Pro show a week before last year's Ms. Olympia where she finished ninth in a controversial decision, she entered this event with all cylinders firing. Overall LeFrancois' conditioning was sound (considering she is still a week out from the Ms. International) and she showed excellent balance and muscle shapes from head to toe. At the evening show, LeFrancois followed up with a beautifully choreographed routine that was the best performance of the evening in either class.
According to the official scoresheets, LeFrancois won the posing round, but dropped the posedown round by three points, locking the victory for Norman.
Norman also won the first round of judging (general appearance and muscularity) by a two-point margin over LeFrancois. Norman's final margin of victory was four points ( 28 to 32). A vast majority of the attending media did not see it that way.
In winning, Norman pocketed $2,000 while additional placers did not win a monetary award. She also earned a qualifying spot for the Ms. Olympia later in the year.
Waging a very close battle for the third and fourth positions was Vickie Nixon and Gayle Moher. In the final tallies, Nixon claimed the third spot with a score of 70 points, while Moher followed with 72 in fourth. Both Nixon and Moher were in top condition, with Nixon bringing her best ever physical condition to this contest. In Moher's case, she has a long resume of pro competitions as a former overall NPC National champion, and her conditioning level here was her best showing in the past two years.
Fifth went to another veteran of pro competitions, Brazil's Angela Debatin. As the largest competitor in this class at 133 pounds, Debatin lacked her usual level of definition to challenge for a higher placing.
At the opposite end of the weight spectrum, 2005 NPC National lightweight champion Carla Salotti tipped the scales at 111 pounds, and was dispatched to sixth place in the class. Interestingly, Salotti was sitting in the third psition after the first two rounds of judging, but slipped to last after what judges saw as a less-than-entertaining posing routine.
POLICKY POWERS HER WAY TO THE HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE
Among the class of eight heavyweights, Heather Policky's victory was a no-brainer. At 170 pounds she simply cast a huge shadow on her seven counterparts with a level of genetically blessed structural qualities the pro level is just going to have to get used to.
With a week to go before the Ms. International, Policky's optimal bodyweight should be in the vacinity of 166 pounds. At that point, she can stand with the many top-level pros who will be waiting to greet her in Columbus. As the 2006 USA champion Policky had made a firm decision not to wait too long before her pro debut and the Sacramento event gave her the perfect opportunity to get her feet wet in a pro competition. The result was predictable. For her efforts she accepted a check for  $2,000 in winning her class, and the same amount for winning the overall.....not to mention a qualifying spot at the Ms. Olympia in her first year as a pro.
Chasing Policky and settling for the runner-up spot was former IFBB North American overall champion Kim Perez. Sporting her remarkably slim waistline and topped off with a pair of very impressive shoulders and arms, Perez simply gave up too much in bodyweight (her official weight at contest time was 149 pounds) to seriously challenge Policky. In her defense, Perez was in very sharp condition and her highly detailed physique - from head to toe - is where Policky will need to be in future events.
Washington's Brenda Raganot bounced back after a very disappointing 15th-place Ms. Olympia finish in 2006 to a look that was at least close to the pleasing aesthetics that had enalbled her to score pro victories at the 2000 and 2005 Ms. International as a lightweight. Here, she weighed in at a well-distributed 143 pounds....good enough for a third-place finish.
Placing fourth was Oregon's Mah-Ann Mendoza. With the weight break between the classes at 135 pounds, Mendoza checked in at 136 1/2, and missed in her attempt to make it into the lightweight group. Have she competed among the lightweights with the conditioning level she showed, the results would have been very much different. But......woulda been, coulda been, shoulda been. You gotta make weight.
Completing the top five was robust Canadian Helen Bouchard. An eighth-place finisher at the 2006 Ms. Olympia and a former Canadian champion, Bouchard entered this event with very little notice or time to prepare and at 166 pounds came close to creating havoc in the higher placings. A bodybuilder's bodybuilder, Bouchard is gaining quickly in fan popularity with her impressive density and straight-forward approach to competing.
Sixth went to New Yorker Heather Foster, who, at 173 pounds, was the contest's heaviest contestant. That poundage, however, was her ultimate downfall, as she fell short of the muscular detail needed tro hang with the top group. Still in all, she is a bonafide crowd pleaser when it comes to her posing routines.
Slovakian Aurelia Grozajova and Sweden's Irene Andersen claimed the final placements . At 5-10, Grozajova carried only 140 pounds on her rangy frame and her skintone was practically non-existent. She has been notably better in the past while winning multiple silver and bronze medals at the IFBB World Amateur Championships as a heavyweight. She finished eighth. In Andersen's case, she simply lacked enough of everything to make a significant impact in this field. Many observers noted that Andersen bore a passing resemblance to Tazzie Colomb in her early career, and at 159 1/2 pounds placed seventh in her pro debut.
With a week to go before the Ms. International, Policky's optimal bodyweight should be in the vacinity of 166 pounds. At that point, she can stand with the many top-level pros who will be waiting to greet her in Columbus. As the 2006 USA champion Policky had made a firm decision not to wait too long before her pro debut and the Sacramento event gave her the perfect opportunity to get her feet wet in a pro competition. The result was predictable. For her efforts she accepted a check for $2,000 in winning her class, and the same amount for winning the overall.....not to mention a qualifying spot at the Ms. Olympia in her first year as a pro.
Chasing Policky and settling for the runner-up spot was former IFBB North American overall champion Kim Perez. Sporting her remarkably slim waistline and topped off with a pair of very impressive shoulders and arms, Perez simply gave up too much in bodyweight (her official weight at contest time was 149 pounds) to seriously challenge Policky. In her defense, Perez was in very sharp condition and her highly detailed physique - from head to toe - is where Policky will need to be in future events.
Washington's Brenda Raganot bounced back after a very disappointing 15th-place Ms. Olympia finish in 2006 to a look that was at least close to the pleasing aesthetics that had enalbled her to score pro victories at the 2000 and 2005 Ms. International as a lightweight. Here, she weighed in at a well-distributed 143 pounds....good enough for a third-place finish.
Placing fourth was Oregon's Mah-Ann Mendoza. With the weight break between the classes at 135 pounds, Mendoza checked in at 136 1/2, and missed in her attempt to make it into the lightweight group. Have she competed among the lightweights with the conditioning level she showed, the results would have been very much different. But......woulda been, coulda been, shoulda been. You gotta make weight.
Completing the top five was robust Canadian Helen Bouchard. An eighth-place finisher at the 2006 Ms. Olympia and a former Canadian champion, Bouchard entered this event with very little notice or time to prepare and at 166 pounds came close to creating havoc in the higher placings. A bodybuilder's bodybuilder, Bouchard is gaining quickly in fan popularity with her impressive density and straight-forward approach to competing.
Sixth went to New Yorker Heather Foster, who, at 173 pounds, was the contest's heaviest contestant. That poundage, however, was her ultimate downfall, as she fell short of the muscular detail needed tro hang with the top group. Still in all, she is a bonafide crowd pleaser when it comes to her posing routines.
Slovakian Aurelia Grozajova and Sweden's Irene Andersen claimed the final placements . At 5-10, Grozajova carried only 140 pounds on her rangy frame and her skintone was practically non-existent. She has been notably better in the past while winning multiple silver and bronze medals at the IFBB World Amateur Championships as a heavyweight. She finished eighth. In Andersen's case, she simply lacked enough of everything to make a significant impact in this field. Many observers noted that Andersen bore a passing resemblance to Tazzie Colomb in her early career, and at 159 1/2 pounds placed seventh in her pro debut.
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