By Emmerson Campbell
On a night when young bodybuilding stars from Georgetown showcased their talent, Kerwin Clarke shone the brightest on Saturday, clinching two titles at the Hugh Ross Classic (HRC) Committee open air show at the Demerara Cricket Club (DCC) ground.
Clarke- of Buddy’s Gym- copped the welterweight and overall titles in the third of four sub-meets prior to the grand staging of this year’s Hugh Ross Classic. The 24-year-old dazzled the sizable crowd at the event when he displayed his rippling abdominals, well defined quadriceps and sculpted arms in his free posing routine and compulsory poses.
In the welterweight category (155 to 165 pounds), Clarke took the spoils ahead of Troy Paul of Powerhouse Gym. Clarke and Paul were the only competitors in this category. Clarke later returned to out-pose and out- flex the winners of the other categories in the pose down.
Devon Davis of Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Gym, took first place in the bantamweight (under 143 pounds) category. Davis out-posed and out-flexed gym mates from Musclemania Gym, Yogeshwar Nirmal, Anthony Sukhu and Steffan Bacchus who placed second, third and fourth respectively.
Lightweight Ronier Caesar from Buddy’s Gym, was the only competitor in that division (144 to 154 pounds) and was subsequently awarded the winner’s trophy. Likewise, in the light middleweight division (166 to 176 pounds) Rawle Cole of Buddy’s Gym was the only competitor in that division and took the trophy home.
Track and Field sprint queen, Alisha Fortune from the GDF Gym left her running suit and spikes at home and donned her high heels and swimsuit and took home the Miss Figure first place trophy. Fortune was the lone female competitor on Saturday night.
The top two musclemen in each category have booked their places at the third biennial Hugh Ross Classic which will be staged at the National Cultural Centre on July 28. The top two bodybuilders will also receive supplement packages compliments of Fitness Express to further fine-tune their physiques for Guyana’s signature bodybuilding event.
The next and final sub-meet will be held in Rose Hall, Berbice on June 2. Only bodybuilders residing in Berbice will be eligible to enter.
The first sub meet was scheduled for Linden two weekends ago but there was only one competitor. He was given a free pass to the finals on July 28.
The second sub-meet was staged last weekend at the Uitvlugt Community Centre ground for bodybuilders of the West Coast of Demerara. The overall winner was 2010 Mr. Guyana, Clint Duke.
Sponsors for the event included Fitness Express, Mohamed’s Enterprise, Banks Malta Supreme, Hand in Hand Insurance Company, City Mall, Fazia’s Collections and Buddy’s Gym.
