For­mer na­tion­al body­builder Clin­ton Sam­my is con­cerned that the sport of body­build­ing is on a de­cline in the coun­try.

Clin­ton, a for­mer Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean cham­pi­on, is lay­ing blame on the lo­cal gov­ern­ing body for the sport, the T&T Body Build­ing Fed­er­a­tion (TTBF) for not do­ing enough to pro­file the dis­ci­pline.

"The cur­rent state of lo­cal body­build­ing is not good. It is on the verge of dy­ing I would say. The main rea­son is that it’s a very cost­ly sport and again, the fed­er­a­tion is not in­volved too much in pro­mot­ing it."

The 59-year-old has been host­ing the Clin­ton Sam­my Clas­sic for the last 30 years. This year's edi­tion was at the Na­pari­ma Boys Col­lege Au­di­to­ri­um on No­vem­ber 11.

Sam­my is call­ing for more ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness of the sport.

"If I was the pres­i­dent of the TTBF my pri­or­i­ty would be set­ting up reg­u­lar work­shops to ed­u­cate peo­ple and ath­letes on the sport more and try to push in­ter­na­tion­al bound­aries. I think we have a lot of tal­ent in our coun­try and the world needs to see it. I would spend more time with the ath­letes and see how we can all work to­geth­er to cre­ate some­thing big."

He fur­ther knocked the TTBF say­ing: "As a body­build­ing fed­er­a­tion, I don’t see any im­prove­ment or any in­tent to pro­mote the sport of body­build­ing in T&T, I be­lieve they can and should be do­ing a lot more."

The own­er of CJ’s Mus­cle and Fit­ness Gym lo­cat­ed in Pe­nal, is call­ing for more sup­port for the body-build­ing.

"I would try to get more gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance and pro­mot­ers for the sport and ac­tu­al­ly work­ing with pro­mot­ers in every event held through­out the years."

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sport re­cent­ly, Sam­my fur­ther said he is push­ing for more ben­e­fits for body­builders in the coun­try.

"I would try my best to en­sure that the ath­letes are prop­er­ly re­ward­ed for their hard work be­cause body­build­ing is a very dif­fi­cult and cost­ly sport and I feel like that ded­i­ca­tion should be re­ward­ed sub­stan­tial­ly."

The Clas­sic made a re­turn to the body­build­ing cal­en­dar for the first time since 2019 as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic shut down sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties in the coun­try and most of the world in 2020 and 2021. In 2023, there was a drop in the num­ber of com­peti­tors.

"This year’s show was very dif­fer­ent due to the lack of com­peti­tors, which is un­der­stand­able be­cause COVID had left a lot of ath­letes fi­nan­cial­ly un­able to train and pre­pare for shows."

How­ev­er, he said he is op­ti­mistic that the Clas­sic will get more sup­port in 2024.

"We do look for­ward to see­ing more in the fu­ture though. We have al­ready start­ed plan­ning. The same venue is booked al­ready and my plans for the next show is to hope­ful­ly get more spon­sors on board so the cash prize pool will be big­ger, hope­ful­ly a $50,000 cash prize once we have enough spon­sors."

Sam­my high­light­ed that he is de­light­ed to see com­peti­tors of the Clas­sic pur­sue ca­reers in the body-build­ing in­dus­try, say­ing: "The show has grown tremen­dous­ly, we’ve seen hun­dreds of ath­letes start off in our show and gone on to rep­re­sent the coun­try and pur­sue dif­fer­ent ca­reers in the fit­ness in­dus­try."

Stephan Maxwell was the star of the 2023 edi­tion of the Clin­ton Sam­my Clas­sic cop­ping the men's mid­dleweight, Clas­sic Physique and over­all ti­tles while Kali­fa Phillip was crowned the Ladies Biki­ni Open win­ner. Cypri­an Wallen (Light­weight), Bar­ry Her­nan­dez (Heavy­weight) and Wen­dell Gra­ham (Physique Open) were first in their re­spec­tive class­es.

Maxwell is rat­ing his vic­to­ry in the mid­dle-weight cat­e­go­ry as the high point for his point of the night.

"It would be mid­dleweight that stands out the most. I have won (the over­all) ti­tle at oth­er com­pe­ti­tions be­fore and al­so in Clas­sique Physique but I have nev­er won or com­pet­ed in (the) mid­dle-weight (di­vi­sion). Be­fore I would nor­mal­ly com­pete in the light­weight cat­e­go­ry. So step­ping up to mid­dleweight is a nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion. So that is the one that stands out for me," said Maxwell.

The Mon­trose, Ch­agua­nas cham­pi­on said win­ning was not his main goal. In­stead, he was aim­ing to just give his best.

"No mat­ter the com­pe­ti­tion you are fo­cused on your­self and not re­al­ly fo­cus­ing on oth­er per­sons to know if you beat them or not beat them. So I don't fo­cus (my) con­fi­dence on win­ning but pri­or­i­tize my con­fi­dence to com­pete."

Maxwell first got in­to the sport in 2019.

Mean­while, Ladies Biki­ni Open queen Phillip is rat­ing her tri­umph as her best ever.

"It is a won­der­ful feel­ing to be re­ward­ed for my sac­ri­fices and ded­i­ca­tion to this sport. This was my best per­for­mance be­cause I im­proved with each com­pe­ti­tion."

The La Brea-born body­build­ing lass said prepa­ra­tion for the show was dif­fi­cult as he had to bal­ance the de­mands of work with the care of her daugh­ter.

"Prepa­ra­tion was chal­leng­ing as usu­al. I am a sin­gle moth­er in a low-in­come brack­et. My daugh­ter is four. I al­so work ear­ly shifts 5 am to 1 pm and late shifts 1 pm to 9 pm. I al­so work some week­ends and hol­i­days. Free time is lim­it­ed. I had to fit in ad­e­quate train­ing and meal prepa­ra­tion in ad­di­tion to my oth­er re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties," said Phillip, who got in­volved in body­build­ing in 2014.