ANB Asia Pacifics Report, Pics, Video 29 May 10

Dear Ali,
On behalf of Infinity Training Systems (Rede Frisby and Tanya McEwan), we would like to express our sincerest of thanks for your great work in chaperoning and organising the NZ Team at the ANB Asia Pacific Champs, Gold Coast, May 29 2010.

Being our first international competition, we were truly impressed with your selection of the NZ team and how well everyone geled. The standard of competition and friendliness within the ANB and the fact it was drug tested under ASADA rules made it even more attractive. We have awaited for something of the like for sometime here in NZ - and we were not disappointed!

Here's to future ANB competitions and the hope that maybe we too can give something back to bodybuilding in NZ; just as you have inviting and helping a NZ Team experience such an amazing NATURAL competition.

The dedication of the team members, focus, and commitment was there at all times, and you did yourselves proud as well as representing NZ at this event.

I know that, for many of you, this was the largest competition that you have ever been involved in, and while some of the class numbers were higher than you have ever experienced before, you will definitely walk away from this having learnt a lot from your experience and know that you gave it your all.
Whether you place 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th or were unplaced in your class you need to be so proud of yourselves as each and every one of you are winners just for getting up there on stage and looking like you belonged. 

I would like to run thru the classes as I want to mention everyone that made this team a success...

The kiwi team kicked off the day with Keri Onyewu in the under 80kg class - a big lineup of 11 competitors, and Keri was just tipping the scales at 72kg.
Amazing stage presence and total focus on what needed to be done and Keri showed the aussies that the kiwis were here to be noticed with being called up into the top 5 lineup and finishing that nite with a fantastic 3rd placing.
Keri - thankyou for then sitting down the front and calling out for every kiwi for the rest of the day - your support was brilliant!

Our next kiwi guys were Rede Frisby and David Virdis in the men's under 70kg - both these guys nailing both their condition and posing, and going on to be in the top 5 call out, and then placing a very credible 4th (David) and 1st (Rede).
Rede's silver fern on his butt for the nite show was a total winner :-) and both these guys reinforced that the kiwi guys were on top of their game and by this stage the aussies knew we were here in force!

Next kiwis up were the woman's under 52kg bodybuilding class - in this class we had Suzie Patrick, Delwyn Evans, Julie Harris and Amanda Murray.
What an amazingly tough class (just as tough as last year aye Jules), and all 4 of the kiwi girls presented fantastic physiques in this line-up. Our 2 more experienced girls, Julie and Suzie made it to the top 5 and our other 2  girls, Delwyn and Amanda would not have been far
off this call-up either - not at all half bad for Amanda's very first competition and Delwyn's second year in this sport.
Julie and Suzie placed 3rd and 4th respectively and Julie's incredible vasularity was definately a talking point back stage - so much so that the aussies were stopping to take photos of her! It wasnt the wine tho ;-)

We then had 3 beautiful girls in the figure short class, all of whom posed their butts off and stood up there in an incredibly tough line-up. Although neither Sheryl Paterson, Karen Julian or Teneka Hyndman placed in the top 5 they definately all had the muscle mass and structure that rivelled any of their competitors.
FYI girls - to let you know how tough this line-up was, the girl that placed 5th came 2nd in Olympia last year - so this was definately a case of the aussies putting their very best up on stage on the day.

Irene Braithwaite (5th) and Donna Ransfeild (4th) were our girls in the women's masters bodybuilding over 35years - another bloody tough class and our girls did the kiwis proud and discovered that its ok to wear 'bling' for pre-judging when you are in a physique class!

Men's masters over 40years - how exciting was this class! Our 3 guys here were Darrin Buck, Mark Batty and Darrin Orchard.
All these athletes were in awesome condition and NZ got a 5th (Mark), a 4th (Buck) and the most amazingly close battle for 1st was between Darrin and an aussie guy - with both of them bringing different strengths and weaknesses to the stage.
Darrin came 2nd but all you guys must be so proud of yourselves as we could easily see the work and focus on each and every one of your faces and knew that you were there to mean business.

After thinning out our novice figure class we ended up with 5 girls competing in this line-up.
Giselle McArtney - second competition ever and looking just beautiful, Angie virdis - first competition ever and confidence and posing that rivelled any other girl on that stage, Tina Juene-Smith - another 2nd timer to the stage who just beamed and looked beautiful, Vanessa Bartley - only 2nd year competing and giving her time on stage 100% committment
(and having a lot of fun in the posedown too!), Jacque Pedersen - returned to this line-up from last year and placed a very credible 5th in what was one of the toughest novice line-ups i've ever seen. All these girls showed how hot novices can look and did the kiwis proud!

Ok, the small (NOT) class of bikini models - over 40 girls!!!!!
Teresa Edwards and Tory Holmes you both looked gorgeous and how the heck they picked a top 5 out of this many girls is completely beyond me - all I know is that this class made me feel very old and made the guys drool haha - altho they said it was just because the girls had 'nice smiles' yeah right! Both our girls routines were fantastic, sexy but not too saucy.

Tall figure, we had Donelle Petello, Mandi Matheson and Michelle Dixon.
All 3 looked beautiful, Donelle and Michelle made the final 5 call-out
and then placed 4th and 3rd respectively. Donelle's impressive condition improvement she made from the week before blew me away.

Gladys, Gladys, Gladys - what a wise choice you made by finally buckling to my annoying persistance that you were going to come over with us on this team despite all your doubts!
You rocked, cleaned it up, and left them, in the Ultra grand masters
figure class, wondering what had hit them - good on you girl!!!

Novice men class - a big line-up and by no means an easy one.
Being an open weight class we were treated to an array of all sorts of shapes and sizes and wow they were awesome. Jason Bartley placed 4th in this tough line-up, and should be absolutely proud of yourself for this acheivement.

I didnt mean to but at the last minute I told Christine Chin and Lauren McLellen that there was absolutely no pressure on them BUT... this was my class and I won it last year and I expected the kiwis to keep the title!!
And they worked their butts off in the Grand masters figure class picking up a 5th placing for Lauren and Christine posed like I've never seen her do before and walked away with the win - yay kiwis rule :-)

Physique class over 52kg - the beautiful Tracey Frost, looking a million
times better than last year and deserved her very credible 3rd placing.

Next we had 4 lovely masters ladies in the tough line-up of over 35years figure class... Cathy Orevich, Tina Dunlop, Karen Kissell and Tracey Single. Tracey and Tina did not make the top 5 but looked awesome and were not out-classed in any way.
Cathy, what a major imrovement on last year - wow you knocked me out (so much so that when i saw you in kiwi uniform I was at first thinking you were some hot aussie chick posing as a kiwi team member - thank goodness you were ours, and anyway you are hotter than any aussie chick!) and Karen Kissell edging out the aussie girl and Cathy to take the 1st place
- well done the 4 of you, you all did us proud.

Our very last kiwi to compete... Wayne Halkyard... totally amazing condition, the kiwi support for you Wayne showed how awesome we thought you looked and there was no doubt in any of our minds that you had totally blitzed the grand masters class and left those aussies wondering what the heck had just hit them!
I had several aussie officials asking me 'who is that guy' as they were so impressed with your condition - you have to be incredibly proud of yourself as we all were of you.

Which took us along to the overall line-ups... 3 of our girls in the figure line-up (out of 6) and 2 of our guys.
Figure: Gladys, Christine and Karen - I was so proud of you all and none of you looked liked you didnt belong there!!
Mens: Rede and Wayne - ok, maybe you were both weighing in at under 70kg
but when both of you stood up there in that line-up either of you could
have taken that title and there was no way you were out-classed. In fact
I couldnt pick a winner at all out of this class and the judges must
have had quite a job on their hands.

I'll wrap up here as I could go on forever haha...

Once again a HUGE thankyou to our sponsor Martin Bolton from Balance - our uniforms looked fantastic and your support with product has been
wonderful!

Lisa from GoFigure - your effort thru-out the entire time leading up to the comp and then at registration and on comp day has been AWESOME and I cant thank you enough for your support of this team and letting our friends and family know all over the world how the team were doing via your website.

We could not have done this without Balance and GoFigure x

Thankyou also to: Vanessa for the tanning of many of the athletes, to David for supplying several of the team with jackets and compression clothing, to those athletes that were out the back tanning many of your team members and encouraging the newer ones amongst us to aim high enjoy their time on stage, the team and supporters who were so vocal with
their support and encouragement of every kiwi that got up there on stage,  to those that were able to stay back, after a long day, and support our overall competitors (it was well worth it aye guys).

Also a Big Thank you to Robert, Steve and Antoinette and the whole ANB and the Australian athletes for the fab show and making us feel so welcome

Lastly, thankyou to you, the athletes, who totally rocked!!! We had 35 kiwis out of 202 competitors and we took home way more trophies than they may have liked us to - oh well - i'm sure it will make them notice us even more when we go back again next year!

I truely hope you enjoyed the experience and that you all learnt something which enables you to progress with your passion for this sport. I put a lot of effort into hopefully making this an enjoyable experience for you all, yes I know you cant please everyone all the time (thats
life), but I will continue to promote this drug-free side of the sport and let our clean athletes know about the ANB, while working towards bringing it here to NZ.

Ali G
6 June 10