Our first six back in 2011 were Kashma Maharaj, Fabiola Boulanger, Ginger Martin, Cindy Landolt, Penpraghai Tiangngok and Katka Kyptova.
In 2012, our choices were Sarah Hayes, Holland Canter, Helle Nielsen,
Andrea Brazier, Gillian Kovack and Tarna Alderman.
And last year the FMS team selected Shannon Courtney, Sophie Arvebrink, Shawna Pierce, Suzy Kellner, Georgina McConnell and Alina Popa.
We originally plumped for six in 2011 because it’s (traditionally) the number of women who get to posedown at the end of a contest, and we’ve stuck with that number ever since. They are in no particular order, and are selected utterly subjectively by us. We make no claims that they are “the biggest”, “the best” or anything like that – these remarkable women are simply our favourites of the last 12 months.
Welcome to Female Muscle Slave’s Women of the Year 2014.
Aleesha Young: Better Than Fantasy
Last month, the genius that is Area Orion brought us Bodybuilding Barbie. [She] is your dream girl come to life, the copy tells us. And funnily enough, one of the very first comments I read about Bodybuilding Barbie was this: She looks like Aleesha Young.
Aleesha (no surname necessary), a female muscle fantasy made flesh. A huge, muscle-curvy physique and huge you-know-whats. Ridiculously huge, some would say dismissively. Cartoonish even. But while it’s true she may not be every female muscle fan’s idea of a dream girl, there are plenty who would argue that those enhancements compliment her voluptuous muscularity to perfection. Aleesha is nothing short of amazing… the hottest, the strongest, the goddess of female bodybuilding, say the forum posters. [She is} sexier than anyone that’s ever won Ms Olympia… a perfect combination of size, strength and sexuality. Yes, there are plenty to whom Aleesha really is the living embodiment of their ultimate female muscle fantasy.
And it’s not just what Aleesha looks like, but also what she does with all that incredible muscle that brings her so much love, her skills making her probably the most “giffed” female bodybuilder ever – her jaw-dropping pec bounce in particular. FMS can exclusively report that studies undertaken by Femuscle Stat International (an organisation set up and funded by our old friend Professor Philpott Pennypacker) reveal that Aleesha has the pec bounce with the greatest vertical lift of all.
More seriously, and though we are by no means immune to Aleesha’s obvious charms, if we only thought of her as the pec-bouncing fantasy, we could have put her on any of our previous Women of the Year lists. This year, however, we couldn’t possibly have compiled one without Aleesha. In 2014, she returned to competition after a three-year break, looking to improve on her poor record at national-level contests. She had always had, in the words of Steve Wennerstrom, a gifted genetic structure and muscle shapes that even a casual observer could see was carrying scary potential. What was missing was the conditioning. But that changed at the NPC USAs in Las Vegas in July. The Heavyweight and Overall titles and the pro card were hers from the moment she walked on. She didn’t win. She owned the show. Completely.
What caused this massive improvement in her conditioning? Well, given that so much about Aleesha is unnatural – whether genetically or cosmetically so – it’s perhaps good to hear that what did it was cardio, that most traditional means of stripping the bodyfat and revealing the muscle. Then again, doing two and a half hours of it seven days a week throughout her contest prep perhaps isn’t so much traditional as super-human. But now she’s nailed it once, why shouldn’t she nail it again and again and again? She’s now a pro, and at 29 a relatively young pro, who has so many genetic gifts and the will to do two and a half hours of cardio a day to bring those gifts to the fore… Truly the mind boggles at the female muscle fantasy Aleesha might yet become.
Juliana Malacarne: Campeã
She was the star (male or female) of the Olympia this year. Commentators marvelled at her “flawless symmetry and balance”, and her “pleasing muscle shapes in every bodypart”. She was “full, balanced, and perfectly conditioned” and her showdown with 2013 champ Dana Linn Bailey was much-anticipated. With the result in doubt to the very end, it was also genuinely exciting. Close, but the right woman won. As one report put it, “Even the most diehard DLB fans had to admit that Malacarne was the right choice for first place.” Seven years ago I came to the USA with $3,000, a pro card, and a dream. Today, that dream came true, said an emotional post-win Juliana.
Images of Juliana’s triumph are among the most memorable not just of the Olympia, but of the whole year, a selection of which we have here, above and below.
She was deemed too muscular to be a Figure competitor, her low-point probably came at the 2006 Sacramento Pro when she finished tied in 20th. As recently as 2010 (her last in Figure) she was placing 16th at the New York Pro. The years she spent in the Figure division after turning pro tested her resilience and perseverance beyond the tolerance of the average competitor, says Steve Wennerstrom. Then again, he adds, Juliana Malacarne is not your average athlete. A lesser competitor would have drifted away from the competitive stage. Not Malacarne. How times (and fortune) have changed for Juliana! Since Physique was introduced in 2012, she has only failed to win one contest she has entered. And this year, as well as the Olympia title, she won the Europa Pro show in Dallas and – for the 3rd consecutive year – the New York Pro.
So, given her contest record in 2014, we thought we should go beyond the more common adjectives Juliana’s admirers use on the general bodybuilding and femuscle fan forums, as well as on Juliana’s Instagram/Twitter etc. Of course we agree that she’s ‘beautiful’, ‘sexy’, ‘amazing’, ‘perfect’, ‘classy’. All good words, but we’d suggest the best description of Juliana in 2014 would be ‘champion’, or as she might say, campeã.
And though her dream has come true, Juliana is by no means finished. She is already in preparation for the first ever Women’s Physique contest at the Arnold Classic next March, and you wouldn’t bet against her. In a division packed with beautiful muscular women, Juliana Malacarne is now the muscle beauty to beat.
FMS Loves Lisa Cross
You really haven’t been paying attention if you’re a regular reader and you’re in any doubt about how FMS feels about the National Treasure that is Lisa Cross. We got so excited last year when Lisa returned to competition that we devoted a whole week to the divine Ms Cross, and consequently we were utterly incredulous when you voted her as only the 35th hottest hard woman on the planet in February. 35th?!
We’ve waxed lyrical about Lisa in the past, then. So what more can we add? Well, with the vast majority of magnificent women we have written about, no doubt we’d be lost for new words. But not with this endlessly fascinating woman. Not with Lisa.
We’ve already talked about that lush body of hers. We’ve told you about her journey from anorexic to muscle goddess, of her contest highs and lows, and of Lisa the purveyor of Hot Muscle Packed Raw Power. We’ve also, hopefully, given readers an insight into Lisa’s mind. It’s a mind that is fluent in Russian, French and Japanese as well as in her mother tongue. It’s a mind broadened by travel and higher education. It’s the mind of an author, a businesswoman, a sexual mind, a creative mind. And, we might humbly add, Lisa revealed this year that it’s a mind into whose consciousness our little blog has entered. *SWOON* The mind of a truly liberated woman.
In 2014, Lisa has published her first book, gained her pro card, continued to purvey her Hot Muscle Packed Raw Power, competed in her first pro show, continued to travel the world, and, most recently, finished constructing a new gym cum studio on her property in order to take her fans (and herself) to new levels of interactive delight.
Albert Camus, who, like Lisa, combined both literary and sporting achievements, once said that The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. I’d like to think Lisa would agree it is an apt description of her approach to life, and it also serves to pretty much summarise what FMS most admires about her. And the fact that Lisa could read Camus in the original French, well, I’m not ashamed to confess to you that that thought turns me on about as much one of her members’ clips does, and even more so if she were reading it personally to me, in the original French, all bronzed, naked, oiled, and flexing…
Camille Leblanc-Bazinet: The Queen (and Face) of Crossfit
For the first time, a non-bodybuilder is one of our Women of the Year, so those who think I am breaking some kind of unwritten code by including a Crossfitter should probably just scroll on. She is Canada’s Camille Leblanc-Bazinet, and this year she earned the right to call herself “The Fittest Woman on Earth” at the CrossFit Games.
Actually, Camille didn’t so much win the CrossFit Games as dominate it from qualifying to finish. She had been the number 1 ranked athlete after the open, and went on to win, again, in number 1 ranked style, the Canada East Regional. At the Games, despite a late rally by Iceland’s Annie Thorisdottir, the result was never really in doubt.
As one commentator has noted, There aren’t many of either gender who could even survive the CrossFit Games, never mind excel, so for Camille to be its champion would be reason enough to include her on our list. However, more than her triumph, it’s the effect of Camille’s success on the women of the world that makes her so important.
The seemingly inexorable rise of CrossFit continues, and, for those of us who dream of a world with more female muscle in it, that can only be a good thing. Whether we FBB fans like it or not, CrossFitters really do inspire the women that bodybuilders don’t reach, and Camille is inspiring many many more than her peers. In the words of CrossFit magazine The Box, she is the Face of Fitness — an athlete with stunning looks and elite-level status. And even before her victory at the Games this year, The Box were advising CrossFit affiliates that all they needed to do to seal the deal with potential female members was to put up posters of Camille all over their gyms.
It’s understandable advice. Who wouldn’t want to look like Camille? She may only be one of many many factors turning women off the skinny ideal and encouraging them to lift weights and get strong, but it’s undeniable that she is a very very important one.
The Talented Ms Ripped: Alana Shipp
I’d like to be able to say that the catchy moniker above is my own invention, but in truth it comes from an article in The Times of Israel that was published just over two years ago. At the time, Jerusalem-resident Alana was being congratulated on her 3rd place finish at the NAC Universe in the Ms Physique (ie. bodybuilding) category. At the time, “The Talented Ms Ripped” had only been training for a year and a half, and her only previous contest experience had been her win in the Ms Fitness category at the NAC Ms Israel earlier in 2012. At the time she said, I am so overwhelmed by the success I’ve achieved in bodybuilding in such a short amount of time.
Imagine how she feels now. 2013 saw her win Lightweight and Overall titles at the NPC New York Metropolitan, then she went on to win the Middleweight class at the NPC USAs. A new pro for 2014, she finished 2nd in her first contest (the IFBB Toronto Pro), 5th in her second (Omaha, the following week). With two of the four qualifying events still to go, Alana had already qualified for the Ms Olympia, and there, in perhaps what is her most impressive achievement so far, she finished 4th on her Olympia debut.
To put Alana’s year in a little context, of this year’s Ms Olympia top 6, only Debi Laszewski (3rd in 2009), and Iris Kyle (in 1999) can better or match Shipp’s debut placing. Of her fellow pro card winners in 2013 (at the NPC Nationals/USAs etc.), only FMS fave Margie Martin (6th in Toronto, 2nd in Omaha, 10th at the Olympia) has enjoyed a debut season worthy of mention in the same paragraph as Alana’s.
And it’s even more amazing when you consider that Alana had no sporting background whatsoever. I’ve never been very athletic, she says. In fact, I’ve always been awkward when it comes to sports. After having her two children, she entered her 30s overweight and, in her own words, “frustrated” at her own appearance. She decided to do something about it and took up weight training. I developed a love for the gym, she says. It felt like a home away from home. I began developing my body way beyond my expectations: the better I looked, the better I wanted to look.
From being overweight and working out for the first time to the Ms Olympia in three and a half years. From Ms Fitness Israel to the first callout at the Ms Olympia in two. No doubt she hasn’t had time to reflect on what she accomplished yet, noted Steve Wennerstrom immediately after the event, but it’s pretty heavy stuff in this day and age of long journeys to the Olympia by way of women’s bodybuilding.
Danielle Reardon: Monstar, Inc.
At the St. Louis Pro show, Danielle Reardon‘s first show this year, Tanya Hyde grabbed her for a pre-contest interview at the end of which, Tanya invites the beautiful and beautifully-tanned Dani to show her (and us) what she’s shortly going to be bringing to the stage. With very fake and very cute coyness, Dani unzips her tracksuit top. Then she lifts her vest… The perfect, and I mean perfect, abs (abs that Dani understandably is obviously gagging to show off) thrilled female muscle fans all over world, provided me with one of my highlights of 2014, and gave us all (courtesy of the genius of Muscular Girls in Motion) what I reckon is the Gif of the Year.
When she did take the stage she was glorious. She ended up in 2nd place, too ripped to win over the judges perhaps, but plenty ripped enough to win the collective heart of the female muscle lovin’ brethren. From St. Louis on, through the shows in Orlando, Omaha, and lastly, Tampa, Danielle was the fans’ favourite every time – though only her Best Poser Award (in Tampa), rather than her placings, would reflect that.
So popular has Dani become that in the last couple of days she has even nicked Juliana Malacerne‘s title of Physique Goddess of the Year, winning by a country mile, on the influential fan forum whose first rule is you do not talk about it.
Speaking of things you don’t talk about, we won’t revisit Dani’s brush with the law in September, except to say that it doesn’t seem to have done her any harm at all, especially if you bear the old adage that ‘no publicity is bad publicity’ in mind. Her star has continued its steady rise since then. The infamous boyfriend incident has, if anything, made her even more in demand for guest posing slots. Her clothing line – launched this year – seems to be doing well. Her new workout videos with Shannon Courtney are the hottest watch around right now, and you can even watch Dani cooking in the first of what is planned to be a series of “Lil Cooking Monstar” episodes.
Watch Dani cooking? I’d watch Dani watch paint dry. I think we all would.
Your Women of the Year? Same? Different?
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