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Saturday, February 22, 2025

Former national bodybuilder says the sport is dying in T&T

by

Clayton Clarke
443 days ago
20231207
Clinton Sammy and wife Jesi at the Clniton Sammy Classic at the Naparima Boys College Auditorium on November 11.

Clinton Sammy and wife Jesi at the Clniton Sammy Classic at the Naparima Boys College Auditorium on November 11.

Courtesy Clinton Sammy Classic

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.


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