Saturday, April 8 in the Braywick Leisure Center we had first of this year UK`s NPC Pro Qualifier run by 2 Bros Pro Events called 10X Ben Weider Classic. The shows offered up to seven Pro Cards but due to the NPC rules requiring minimum number of competitors in categories only four have been given to the overall winners. As expected main contenders to the Cards were athletes who placed well at Kingdom Classic regional show two weeks prior, as well as those who done well at their national regional shows as we had number of international athletes with the likes of team Germany with Christopher Kallmeyer winner of German MB regionals in Munich on March 18th, who is well known here in UK after coming very close to overall win in bodybuilding category at the last year edition.
BODYBUILDING:
Bodybuilding overall line up consisted of middleweight Ali Albaghli, light heavyweight Jordan Gomes, Christopher Kallmeyer (who surpassed recent Kingdom Classic overall winner Carl Philbrick in heavyweight class) and super heavyweight Reece McDonald. It was Reece who went home with the sword.
CLASSIC PHYSIQUE:
In classic, overall line up consisted of Ali Albaghli from Class A, from biggest class B Luc Steinker winner of NPC Olimp Cup regionals week before in Gera – Germany. Luc came ahead of the likes of Corey Fieldhouse in that class. From class C Matthew McCullough who overcame Kingdom Classic overall champ Brandon Hinton and Alex Davies (not sure why Alex was placed in C instead of class D as two weeks ago) then from class D we had Klaus Riegler. I was very happy to find out that the lad from Belfast who I know personally took the overall, Matt McCullough who I first saw competing in 2018 in Muscle Model category came a long way with tremendous transformation in the past 2 years or so under Calum Raistrick.
MEN`S PHYSIQUE:
In board shorts category we had six open classes and to no surprises in overall we had guys who also battled at overall during Kingdom Classic and those were class A winner Sheridan Taylor, (interestingly third place finisher Ali Albaghli previously entered overalls in both classic and bodybuilding) from class B Ben Fok, Alexander Freshwater from class D and Ahmad Rabus from class E, in tallest class E this time Daniel Pollard came out with first place. In class C strong contender to the win Timothy Menyah went through a Deja Vu moment as he had exactly same situation last year – placed second, when only two weeks ago he won overall at Kingdom Classic (as well as Saxon Classic under PCA). The win in class C followed by overall went to Lewy Blackmore who later had a chance for a debut at Pro stage during 1 Bro Pro were he placed 4th.
WOMENS PHYSIQUE & BODYBUILDING:
Just like two weeks ago, the only contender in both categories was Alexandra Kokkonen she will be returning home to Australia with four sword in total and follow the appeal process for possible Pro Card to NPC.
FIGURE:
Unfortunate strong decline of female competitor now also hit figure, there wasn’t enough athletes for NPC to award overall winner Amy Meredith the Pro Card.
BIKINI:
The most female popular category saw up to twelve athletes in class H, overall and Pro Card was awarded to Marnie Al-Saraf who won ahead of very strong contender to the win Becky West who got overall two weeks ago. Marnie later placed 4th at 1 Bros Pro show.
WELLNESS:
In wellness we saw only there ladies, Frida Nilsson won ahead of Nadia Long (who btw is girlfriend to already mentioned Matt McCullough and who stepped on stage after 6 month since having a baby) and Natalie Moncrieffe. Number of athletes wasn’t enough to award Pro Card to Frida.
| Country: United Kingdom | City: Maidenhead | Date: April 8, 2023 |
| DIVISION | NAME | COUNTRY |
| MEN’S BODYBUILDING | Reece McDonald | United Kingdom |
| CLASSIC PHYSIQUE | Matthew McCullough | United Kingdom |
| MEN’S PHYSIQUE | Lewis Blackmore | United Kingdom |
| BIKINI | Marnie Al-Saraf | United Kingdom |
IFBB 1 BRO PRO
To very strange and unprecedented situation went in Men’s Physique category, Polish athlete Piotr Borecki who previously won shows in both classic and 212 as well competed in Olympia in those categories decided to put on board shorts and compete in Men`s Physique. His reasoning was the fact that there was no 212 Pro Shows at the time.
Full gallery at NpcNewsOnline HERE.
