Question for you guys who have been around these competitions a lot.
Do you see a lot of kids under 18? I can’t picture very many young men with enough development at that age, but there are lots of adolescent girls who could do bikini.
I remember a thread. Can’t remember who put it up, but there was a high school-aged young woman with quite developed musculature/ figure comp type body. Blonde, and just a very pretty girl. Someone here put a thread up, talking about her progress. She was someone who trained at their gym. Anyway, things got awkward because she looked physically mature, and some of the men here were making comments about her attractiveness, to put in nicely.
There was a TN article about figure comps and why women shouldn’t compete. Erg. I don’t recall who wrote it, but some of the comments had a story of a dad who went to watch his high school-aged daughter compete in bikini. Apparently he wasn’t prepared for how this was going to go because he jumped up on the stage and pulled her off during the show. At least that’s my recollection of how the story went.
Anyone remembers this kid ? At the time wasn’t it rumored his daddy was diving him more than just protein shakes?
I guess my question is are those kids pictured up top really into all of it? Or are the parents pushing it? I know from my experience in youth sports it seems its the parents are the ones pushing things so they can live through their kids. Interesting fact is most kids will drop out of a sport they started as a youth by the time they reach Their SR. year of High School… I believe the drop out rate is over 90%.
Some shows have Teenage divisions, but to be honest it’s rare that any of the entrants look like they could do any serious damage in an open class. Of course I"m referring to most of the tested shows I find myself judging.
I have been to a few NPC shows where you hear people going on and on about the latest teen sensation, but while I can appreciate the dedication and effort for someone of such relative young age would need to put forth, I also wonder how much understanding went into the decision for someone still going through puberty to begin playing with PEDs (but that’s certainly a whole different thread right there!)
I understand the premise of trying to get people interested in BBing at a young age. I also understand that there are beauty pageants and cheer and dance, where little girls, and some little boys, are “judged” starting at age 4 to 6. I have two girls who both started on a competition cheer team at age 5 and have been in beauty pageants here and there since they were the same age. But this just seems different to me for some reason. I don’t know why.
