Articles The Wennerstrom Report Jacque Till Returns to the Emerald Cup: AFTER 18 YEARS IT 'S STILL TILL !
Jacque Till Returns to the Emerald Cup:
AFTER 18 YEARS IT 'S STILL TILL !
April 21, Bellevue, Washington: The NPC Emerald Cup is a giant annual regional event in the Pacific Northwest, and it regularly draws competitors from throughout the country along with a sprinkling of international contestants. This year, however, was special. Promoters Brad and Elaine Craig were welcoming this year's entrants to the 30th anniversary Emerald Cup, and as usual, the women's events were sterling.
With a long history dating back to 1983, the women's bodybuilding portion of this contest has drawn outstanding competitors, many of whom moved on the pro ranks.
One former overall Emerald Cup champion who didn't endeavor to move on to the pro level was Oregon's Jacque Till. Her E-Cup win came in 1994, but for the 30th anniversary event her name and personage once again became a primary focal point at this prestigious event, and it came by way of a scintillating comeback victory effort.....and that's comeback with a capital 'C'.
It has been 18 years since she won her first Emerald Cup, and that's a very long time by competitive bodybuilding standards. In fact, looking back, 1994 saw Lenda Murray win her fifth Ms. Olympia on the way to winning eight. Tiny Michele Ralabate used a ton of muscle to win the overall NPC National crown, while New York's Danielle LeRoy captured the overall NPC USA. And just a year later, Kim Chizevsky began her four-year run as Ms. Olympia with what many still believe to be the most muscular of all the Ms. Olympia winners. All four have long since left the competitive scene.
In our everyday lives outside the world of bodybuilding, 1994 also saw Tanya Harding's accomplice busy bashing Nancy Kerrigan's shin in a figure skating scandal prior to the Winter Olympics. A dozen eggs cost .87 cents. A gallon of gas was $1.11. Unemployment was at 6.9%, and the Dow Jones hit a record high of 3, 978.36. Hit movies included Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, Dumb & Dumber, and The Lion King, while Schindler's List won the Academy Award for 'Best Picture'. Topping the music charts were such blockbuster's as 'I Swear' by All-4-One, 'I'll Make Love to You' by Boyz II Men, and Sheryl Crow's 'All I Wanna Do'. The 18 years since then have flown by.
But Jacque Till's journey to her first Emerald Cup victory got its start long before 1994, in fact it could be traced back to the gymnastic classes she took as a three year-old. In a move from her Santa Ana, California birthplace to Junction City, Oregon, softball and volleyball became the major focus into her high school years . And it was in her sophomore year of high school when, at 15, weight training began to play a role in her efforts to increase her strength for the sports where she was most active. As she began to see a change in her physique, the more muscular look appealed to her and after seeing Rachel McLish and Tonya Knight in bodybuilding magazines she took to the training more serio
usly. She was 16 years old.
By November 1989 in her senior year of high school, she decided to enter her first contest – the NPC Northwest Naturals. She finished third. That experience helped light the fire of curiosity. With the coming of 1990 she was making further improvements and in three contests during the year she captured a first-place spot at the NPC Western Oregon, a runner-up placement at the NPC Emerald Empire, and another victory – this time an overall win – at the NPC Portland Rose Cup.
With the passing of another year Till recalls, “I think 1991 was when I first really looked like a bodybuilder. I was up to 137 pounds (she weighed between 125 to 130 at her first contest) and had finally gained a decent amount of muscle.” That year she again finished second at the Emerald Empire and added a victory at the Western Oregon. In 1992 she once again finished second at the Emerald Empire and took her first steps to the national-level and as a 19-year-old she placed third at the NPC Teen Nationals.
Till took a pass on the 1993 competitive season to change her approach to contest prep and just gain further muscle cultivation. “I was having diet problems and wasn't coming in hard enough for shows,” she remembers. “So I took the year off to change my eating habits.” The decision worked like a charm busting out in 1994 with a convincing win at the NPC Emerald Cup followed by another victory at the NPC Pacific Coast. At that point she was on everyone's radar as a certifiable national-level competitor and still only 21 years old.
With her first contest entry in 1995 Till maintained the momentum she had enjoyed throughout her career. In fact, she had never finished worse than third at any contest she entered. But that was about to change. She entered the always competitive NPC Junior Nationals and placed a strong second behind HW and eventual overall winner Jennifer Greenbaum. It was an encouraging finish that she thought would help her make another strong showing at the NPC USA just over a month later. However, a strong dose of reality was about to rear its unflattering head. The NPC USA and its sister contest the NPC Nationals have always been the prestige events on the annual NPC calendar. And 1995 was no different. Along with eventual overall winner Valerie Gangi, the USA field included the likes of Chris Bongiovanni, Betty Pariso, Robin Parker, Heather Foster, Ericca Kern, Carmen Brady, Tina Lockwood, and Suzan Kaminga. At 5-5 ½ and weighing in at 145
, Till would finish eighth in the heavyweight class leaving her feeling more than just a bit bewildered at her first real national-level contest.....so bewildered, in fact, that she decided to step aside from bodybuilding altogether. Later, she would admit as it related to her own personal standards, that she felt she would have had a very difficult time keeping up with the evolution of sport at that time.
With bodybuilding firmly on a back burner – and perhaps forever as far as she knew – Till finished college graduating from Oregon State with a degree in Exercise Sports Science. Then for a time she became a personal trainer and even tended bar before studying to become a veterinary technician - a career she would devote herself to for ten years.
But did her training come to an abrupt end? “No, not at first,” recalls Till. “I continued to train consistently from force of habit. I guess you could say I was into maintenance training. For a while I just did cardio. Then I stopped when I decided I didn't have a reason to train. Actually I began to run. I even trained for a marathon.”
Fast forward to 2010. Understandably, everyone was curious as to why Till considered making a comeback. “I had heard about the new Physique division that was going to be introduced, and thought I might like to give that a try,” says Till. “I connected with Stan Efferding here in Oregon. He had recently turned pro at the Masters Nationals and he was very supportive in encouraging me to get back to serious training. When I began to train again, I weighed 172 pounds and I shocked myself in how quickly I responded to the training.”
“For anyone who knows me, they know I don't know the meaning of moderation,” admits Till. “I don't enter into anything lightly.” The result was that Till trained right through the criteria level of the physique division, and as Efferding and others around her soon realized, she was a full blown bodybuilder again – with every bit the potential to be as good as she was so many years ago.
The next step was an obvious one.....enter a contest. But which one? “In May or June of last year I thought the 2012 Emerald Cup would be a good choice,” recalls Till. “Since I had won it in 1994, it would be like coming full circle, and I had no idea it was such a speci
al event being the 30th anniversary.” When the weekend arrived and Till traveled to Washington for the event, she entered at a rock-solid 149 pounds and literally looked like she hadn't aged a day in the past 18 years. Her win was a convincing one, and with the victory came the inevitable questions almost as soon as she had collected her awards on stage. Now what? Are you going to enter another contest?
“To be honest,” I hadn't given it much thought before the Emerald Cup,” admits Till. “I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.” But the reality soon hit home. Years earlier she had aspired - as so many competitors do - to reach the pro ranks. And with the passage of time, that aspiration was again a possibility due to the awarding of pro status to Masters competitors. So now, at Masters age, Till had a decision to make....and soon. The 2012 NPC Masters Nationals was being held in mid-July and she would need to begin thinking about a course of action if she wanted to take that step.
“It didn't really take that long to make my decision to go for the Masters Nationals,” says Till. “I just felt that I had come this far, I should give the Masters contest a try. It would only be about three more months of training and prep.”
If reaching the pro ranks was Jacque Till's dream as the 1994 Emerald Cup champion 18 years ago, how sweet the victory would be if it came her way in 2012 at the NPC Masters Nationals. Whether or not that dream is realized, we'll just have to wait TILL then.
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