By Kizan Brumell
After the considerable hype over the inaugural Hugh Ross Classic, the day of reckoning is finally here and come tomorrow, the winners of the two categories will be basking in undoubted glory.
While the males will be competing to win the overall title, the ladies will compete for the title of Ms. Bodybuilding and Ms. Fitness Open when the competition gets underway tonight from 7pm.
Two of those ladies will be on show tonight at the National Cultural centre after completing their training at Studio 2000.
Melissa ‘Vanilla’ Roberts said that the road to the competition was very rough. However, Roberts felt that the training and everything else was worth it.
The winner of the 2006 Novice and 2007 Interme-diate Ms. Body Fitness titles said her preparation leading up to this event had been quite good.“Vigorous training, hard work and a good diet have been the key points I’ve acted on mostly,” said the 25-year-old. Roberts said she would be competing in only the Ms. Body Fitness category, adding that there would be no playing around for her in this historic event.
One of Melissa’s opponents will be 2007 Sportswoman-of-the-Year, Alisha Fortune who will be taking part in her first body building competition and will be guest posing in the Ms Body Fitness competition.
“My preparation has been pretty good,” said Guyana’s top female sprinter.
The 32-year-old added that her training had not differed much from her normal track and field routine.
Fortune, who is currently the premier female sprinter in Guyana, will be competing in the Ms. Fitness category and as a first comer will be looking to walk away with the title. In the Mr. Light-Middleweight category (75.7 – 80kg) Canada-based Guyanese Royston Booker could be a worthy candidate to cop the top position.
This will be Booker’s first competition in Guyana, though he said he had been taking part in numerous body building competitions a while back although those were not of any great significance.
“Hugh Ross is like a model to me so upon hearing about this competition, I decided to take part and I am confident about sweeping my category and going on to be crowned Mr. Hugh Ross Overall Champion,” were the positive words coming from Booker who is sponsored by the International Pharma-ceutical Agency (IPA).
Booker said his training for the competition had been good as he had not had much to do being a fitness trainer.
He said while he would have loved to have more time to prepare he still would be looking to be successful.
