NABBA World Championships 2013

The Nabba Worlds were held this year in the beautiful Montecatini Terme, Tuscany, Italy  on June 8^th. We travelled out Friday 7^th, although the majority of competitors travelled out the previous day and some even earlier.  This would have been the competitors from Asia, Australia and NZ, who endured a 36 hour flight. It cannot have been fun  to carry all their food, not to mention the control needed over their water intake, so respect and hats off to those guys and girls. 

My prep for Friday started at 07:00 with 75g of oats and one banana. I then made up 5 meals consisting of 250g of mashed sweet potato and 120g of white fish (coley stakes). These were then put into containers and I just hoped they would be ok going through security at Manchester airport. I was still drinking about ½ ltr of water per hour at this point. 

We arrived at Pisa airport about 18:30 and the very scenic bus journey that followed meant we didn’t arrive at the hotel until 21:30ish.

We had missed the pre contest welcome and brief so at this point didn’t know where the venue was, start time, running order or who to ask! However, a little detective work discovered a handy notice board which provided me with all the required info. What was immediately apparent was we had early start as my class was due to check in at 08:45 and on stage at 09:30! This meant that my 1^st coat of tan needed to go on before bed. Luckily I had anticipated this and had packed something to sleep in so as not to leave the room bedding looking like a dirty protest!

I had also brought food for the next day and water was no longer an issue as I had cut my water intake to 0 just after getting on the plane. Breakfast was 2 table spoons of 99% peanut butter, 2 teaspoons of MTC oil, 10g milk chocolate melted together and 1 banana pushed into the mixture which is then left to set in the fridge. This meal held all the energy I would need for the next 4hrs (and it tasted fantastic). I had two more of these meals to last the rest of the day. 

The morning of the show. 

As previously mentioned, it was to be an early start. The venue was the Theatre Verde , a 10 min walk away from the hotel, which was not a problem in the warm Italian sun. So at 08.15 on a beautiful sunny morning we arrived outside the Theatre to register and hand in my music, along with a number of very impressive physiques. Nerves were starting to kick in, despite an earlier pep talk (while being tanned up in the hotel room by wife Wendy) that I should just enjoy it and the unforgettable memories we would make that day. It’s sometimes hard to resist checking out such high calibre athletes and not compare yourself less favourably (an involuntary gut reaction), even though you have no idea what class they are competing in!

Only competitors were let in at this point, so Wendy was left standing outside till the box office opened.   

Backstage I was so pleased to meet up with my young mate Marcel Vormawah, who was competing in the Junior class and looking fantastic. As it often goes in these events the timings didn’t run to plan and were slipping back, with the result being that we were hanging around for a long time backstage, pumping up and trying to stay focused. 

An unusual (for those of us from UK shores), and not at all unpleasant consequence of the large number of athletes and ever-decreasing space, was that some of the Ladies Figure class competitors, who had started to arrive, chose to get tanned up outside the theatre in the open sunshine :)

So the time finally came for me to get out there and do my stuff. The Masters Over 40s class had just left the stage, many absolutely fantastic physiques in evidence. The Over 50s were then called to line up in number order to take to the stage, which was the first chance I had to truly see who was in my class from the international competitors.

The comparisons begin with the usual quarter turns and from this point on the nerves evaporated as it became time to get down to ‘business’, concentrating on hitting all the poses, turning the correct way and giving the best angles to the judges. I must, of course, not forget to mention the other essential element; listening out for Wendy yelling at me to ‘not be lazy’ and telling me what I should be doing!

Once the compulsory quarter turns have been completed to the judges’ satisfaction, the format of the show is then for competitors to leave the stage and ready themselves to come back on individually to perform their choreographed, practised posing routine to their chosen music. This was a new (hopefully improved) routine for me to new music, which I felt was needed as testament to the importance of this competition.

So there I was in position on stage, music about to start....and the next I knew, it was all over! It all happened so fast and everything went almost to plan; perhaps a little off beat in one or two places, but other than that, all good. 

Once you leave the stage it is all about making sure you remain pumped and ready for the real work of the posing comparisons about to come. I must admit I did spend a little time checking out my competitors’ posing routines – some of them were extremely well-executed and impressive.

When the last competitor has finished his individual routine, we all took to the stage once more and lined up as directed, and were called out in groups of four to be compared to one another by means of a set of compulsory poses, which are as follows:

• Front double bicep
• Front Lat spread
• Side chest (any side)
• Side tricep (any side)
• Turn and face the rear
• Rear lat spread showing ham string and calf
• Rear double bicep
• Turn and face front
• Abs and thighs
• Most muscular   

You can be called out any number of times and compared against any number of athletes, but it is a bit of a ‘tell’ as to the final outcome if you make the call-out of the first four, which indeed I did.
I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the process, not least because my good friend, and also my competition for the title, the very awesome Martyn Holroid was beside me on stage, making me work very hard. 

I am so very thankful I felt really good, there were no cramps or ill effects from the dehydration – it was just over all too soon! All in all I was only called out twice for the comparisons, which is normally a good sign – as long as you are called out in the first four!

Pre-judging over for me I was able to sit back and take in the atmosphere and enjoy watching the show from then on; albeit not fully able to relax, as the results of all my hard work would not be realised until the evening show and prize-giving. The pre-judging ended at around 2.30 in the afternoon and we then made our way out of the Theatre Verde to take in some of the sights and atmosphere of this beautiful spa town. Unfortunately the only sight I was primarily interested in was the amazing Italian icecream and frozen yoghurt cafe just across the road, where I found my enthusiasm being shared amongst many of my fellow competitors. ‘How could you eat icecream’ do I hear you cry? The fact is, at this stage the judging in such competitions has already been completed, and there is limited damage you can actually do- so long as you are careful and make sure you ‘engage the brain’. 

So on to the main event – the evening show!

We had been informed by the Nabba World organisers that the show would kick off with a ‘foot parade of Nations’ from the hotel, through the town and to the Theatre Verde venue, during which we would be accompanied by a Marching Band and majorette squad – all filmed for Italian TV! This was a particularly proud time for me as I found myself walking amongst a UK team of exceptional and renowned bodybuilding athletes, both male and female, as well as their international counterparts from some seventeen nations. 

As soon as the parade was over it was back to business! Back, once again at the theatre I had to go straight back stage as my class would be the third on that evening. It was now time for checking my tan, achieved with the help of the soon-to-be Junior Mr World, Marcel! This is quite a tricky time, because the running order timetable has a habit of slipping back quite considerably on occasion. What this means in real terms to the competitor is that the exercise he is carrying out to keep his muscles pumped can then stretch out for a prolonged time, having a detrimental effect; so it can be quite a balancing act to manage. Suffice to say I was fortunate to have managed it well on this occasion.

The magnificent Masters Over 40 class had just finished and been been awarded their trophies and it was now my turn to take to the stage. All Over 50s competitors were called onto stage, as was the case in the morning pre-judging, but this time, the call from the judges was to go through what is termed the ‘pose down’. This to all intents and purposes looks like a free-for-all to loud music, but in actuality is an opportunity for all athletes to hit the poses they know make them look the best, and hopefully outdo the guys standing beside them. 

Once the pose down had come to a close, six competitors were called out, and asked to leave the stage in preparation for them alone to perform their individual routines, as this means they have placed in the top six and will ‘fight it out’ for the title. I was one of these six. The remaining competitors were given medals and thanked by a Nabba representative for their participation. The competition was then over for them.

Just to prove that things didn’t go completely to plan for me, as I stood on stage waiting to perform my routine once more to the music I had spent many hours practising, I realised they had begun to play the wrong track on the album. This is a good lesson to all of the prudency to practise to other tracks if you are handing in an album of music, since it turned out to fit my routine just as well as my chosen track had, and didn’t phase me. 

It was over all too soon. All six competitors were then called back on stage to hear the results. ..

6^thplace: Phil Kuklinski  (New Zealand)
5^th place:  Paul Longfield  (Phillippines)
4^th place: Leon Vega (France)
3^rd place: Martyn Holroyd  (UK)
2^nd place: Antonio De Peddis (Italy)
1^st place:  Paul Rowe  (UK)!

All of the results and even pictures can be found here.

With every place that was called out I knew I was placing higher so when 3^rd place was called and again it wasn’t me I thought “2^nd is ok” as I dared not even consider 1^st place. 
So when the compare said the words “and in 2^nd place ....from Italy” (I don’t think I even heard him say the name Antonio De Peddis ) I knew I was World Champion!
The required posing for the top three pictures went by in a bit of a blur and then we left the stage, collected our stuff, and I tried to rub off as much of the tan as possible. At this point I would like to thank all the competitors from the other classes waiting to go on, for the warm and heart-felt congratulations I received from them.

Now it was time to join Wendy. I knew precisely where she was sitting because even though I wasn’t with her when she got the seats I had clearly heard her very ‘enthusiastic’ shouting whilst I was on stage!  Thanks, Wendy for all your support. Love you, baby.
The rest of the show took on a whole new feeling. All I wanted now was for the rest of the NABBA UK team to do well and if shouting for them would help that was what we were going to do (just wish I wasn’t such a rubbish shouter, unlike the wife!).
After the show there was only one thing to do – find FOOD in the form of Pizza and ice cream, with some new friends on the UK team, the aforementioned Marcel Vormawah, and the equally awesome Carl Jolley (MR Class 3 ) and their lovely ladies.
Now feeling uncomfortably full it was back to the hotel for a good scrub. It can be hard work getting all the tan off but it needed to be done or I would be paying for new sheets! 
The flight times back to the UK was such that we had to be on the coach at 07:30 which meant breakfast would have to wait until the airport (at this point I am thinking of nothing except what I can eat next). I wasn’t alone -the eateries at Piza airport that next morning proved to be shoulder to shoulder with the post-comp, happy and hungry UK Nabba team, enjoying the delights of chocolate croissants etc etc.  

Once back in the UK I gave myself an ‘eat what I like’ week and I did just that, putting on 21lbs in 3 days!

As soon as that week was over, it was time to start thinking about the Universe on the 12 October in Southport...
I will be next updating this blog about 5 weeks out from the Universe, so see you then!