Part 5: How we can improve our bodybuilding events

6. Judges and Athletes

As one bodybuilder said to me, "Hindi po mapapakain ng medalya ang aking pamilya". Medals won't be able to feed my family. So obviously some cash prizes will attract more athletes. Yes there are people who are happy by the title alone. But no one will complain if there are some prizes as well. So far in the Philippines, we seem to be lucky enough that even some events with token prizes still gets a fair amount of bodybuilders. 

However, with  this increase in prizes comes with it the headache when complaints come in after the contest questioning the result. So you better get some reputable judges. For me, a judge needs to have two qualities - integrity and know how, in that order of importance. It doesn't matter that a person has passed a judge certification course, if he has a history of criminal misconduct, I wouldn't spend the time of day on him. Remember it is you who's going to get the complaints from the bodybuilders and their supporters if the judging becomes questionable, not the judges themselves.

If you really must put sponsors as judges then ensure that you have a method of dropping the top and lowest scores for each athlete to ensure fairness. This is in fact the way other artistic events in the olympics are judged.

There has also been a change in the bodybuilding scene over the years. The preference has switched from size, to symmetry, to definition, to all of the above. So the organizer should ensure that there is a  judges meeting before the event to have a consistent scoring among the judges. Discuss with them any point deduction system you want to put in place for the event.

Lastly, though this is still a pipe dream, it would nice to flash the bodybuilder's score right after their freeposing routine, as I don't think they actually do judge the posing routine anyway (This I'am not sure). This can easily be done through existing technology.  Though it might break protocol on most of the existing bodybuilding organizations, so again, it's just my pipe dream.