Physique Canada Star Alexandre Villeneuve Interviewed

Recently, I made a comment on social media that there are very few bodybuilders whom I respect. One of the reasons is that most bodybuilders use drugs, and I have no time or use for drugs in sport. Another is that too many bodybuilders I’ve met have little to say once they leave the stage or gym. They’re not well-rounded whatsoever, let alone interesting to talk to; instead, their whole world seems to revolve around what their next workout and meal will be. That’s probably a controversial thing for the editor of a physique publication to say, but it’s also the truth.

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Kanstrup Conquers – Plus Four Future Physique Canada Stars

More than once in the last six months, I wrote that it was not Jess Kanstrup’s physique that kept her out of the top three in Tier 1 Pro women’s athletic physique at last year’s Physique Canada Canadian Championships; instead, it was her posing that caused her placing to slip. It’s not that posing counts directly at these competitions, but it was counting against Jess last year because she wasn’t showing her outstanding physique as well as she could. It was as if she was hiding what was there. 

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Physique Canada's Fantastic Female Competitors

In January 2014, I wrote an article called “The All-Women Issue – Signs of a New Strategy,” in which I said, “[T]hese days women outnumber the men at most competitions. I don’t have any hard statistics on how many women are competing versus men, since it varies contest to contest, and also organization to organization, but if I had to pull a rough figure out of the air as an overall estimate, I would peg it at 2:1. In other words, at any given contest, you can be confident that two-thirds of the competitors are women. And in the future, I only see it going higher.” Looking back now on what I said then, I wouldn’t change a word – women far and away outnumber the men at physique events, a trend I see continuing to grow.

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Last Year's to This Year's National Classic

As I sat down to write this, I paused for a moment because I could hardly believe that almost a year has passed since last year’s Physique Canada National Classic. It was held on June 14, 2014, and was one of the organization’s most unforgettable events. It was there that Simon Proteau, who is featured on our cover this month as well as in the photo at the top of this article, won Tier 1 Pro men’s bodybuilding. Edith Syjuco took the title in Tier 1 Pro women’s athletic physique, and Nadia Moussa won the crown in Tier 1 Pro women’s muscular physique after 12 years away from the competitive stage. It’s all so clear to me as if it happened just yesterday.

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Physique Canada's Rising Stars

One of the great things about being part of Physique Canada from the beginning is that I’ve been able to watch the progress of the organization as it has grown from being simply an idea to becoming a real force in Canadian physique sports that is changing the nature of competing – never before has a physique organization taken drug testing so seriously, which, in turn, has made such a fair stage to compete on for true drug-free competitors.

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