Now that we are well into the 2009 contest schedule, I thought it would be interesting to travel back in time to the year 1987 when I interviewed Bev Francis following that year's Ms Olympia contest. This contest turned out to be very challenging for Bev; however, being a true champion, she not only meet the challenge head on, she went on to place a very respectable third in a great lineup. Here's her story, which begins with a look at her preparation for that year's show....
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So Bev, just what goes on in the last two weeks leading up to a show?
"Well the most important thing in the last two weeks is that the training is done. You can't build any more muscle in the last two weeks. It's time to sharpen up on the diet. You want to bring out the last shreds, the cuts. Also, the final preparations include getting a very good tan and getting the posing down to a tee... So with me, as far as training is concerned, I do light sessions, really just going through the motions in training. A lot of aerobics to try to burn the fat, maintaining a strict diet and of course working on posing."
Talking about the posing... I believe you finalized your posing routine pretty late in the day for this year's show...
"I had ideas in my head for the type of movements I wanted to hit and the way I wanted things to flow but I did not know what music I wanted to use. I knew I wanted to use a slow piece that I could do more elegant poses in to start the routine, and then I wanted really upbeat music to finish the routine off. I wanted two pieces of music this time because I wanted to stay out longer than I usually do. I normally pose for about two and a half to three minutes at the most. Now, most of the girls really pose for much longer at the Olympia, so I wanted to pose for around four minutes. That was my aim. Four minutes is too long on one tune in my opinion, the audience gets bored, and you can't afford to have a bored audience. The free posing is really entertainment, so we needed the two pieces. I found a slow piece that I liked, but I couldn't find a fast piece! I was racking my brains till about a week before when I was in the gym, working with a client and ‘Jailhouse Rock' came on the radio and it struck me that that was the piece I wanted. It was so popular and affected people so much and it also had a good beat to pose to. So that's how I actually chose it.'
So you put together the posing routine at pretty short notice....
"Yeah, Actually I had some help from Gregory Hines, I train his wife, and he offered to give me some pointers which was great because he is probably about the best dancer alive today. I worked with him one day for a few hours, and with him and Steve and me working on it, we put together a routine which I worked on that week and modified. I was working on it really right up until the last day before the Olympia, getting it right."
Changing the subject how did having to turn up a couple of days early for the drug tests affect your preparation? (N.B. the Ms Olympia was drug tested back in 1987)
"Well for me it wasn't so bad because the Olympia was in New York and I live in New York. So on Tuesday night everyone was supposed to be in the hotel because the drug test is on Wednesday morning. We went into the city on Tuesday night, slept there, took the drug test very early and then went home again. I spent the next couple of days at home, which I think is much nicer than being in a hotel, and then I just came back to the hotel on Friday, so I spent the night before the show there."
What was the atmosphere like between the contestants at the drug test?
"It's always very jovial. All the girls know each other basically, except there are one or two new ones. So you are either meeting people that you know already, which is nice, or you are meeting athletes that you know of and they know of you, so it's a new meeting which is always nice. The women I find in this sport are a terrific bunch. I really like the girls a lot. Everyone really gets on very well with everyone else, so the atmosphere at the drug test was good."
So how did the morning's pre judging go for you this year?
"I was very confident. I knew I was in great shape. I was in the best shape of my life but I had a very tough time during the actual contest on stage. The lights are very bright and I always get affected by the heat on the stage. I become very dry, and I had to go off stage at one point because the back of my throat really closed up on me and I needed to get some air and some water. I came back on stage very quickly but then, I don't know how it happened, I must have messed up on the amount of fluid that I took in, but I started to cramp really badly. The cramp actually started in the second round (the symmetry round) both quadriceps at the same time. I cramped extremely badly, like finger depth. You could put your finger in the slits in my medialis, the quadriceps inside the ‘teardrop'. This was excruciatingly painful. The outer quadriceps was fibrillating, you could see the fibers shooting off, but it was the inside one, the teardrop, that was crippling me. It got to the stage that I couldn't stand any more and I had to kneel on the stage, which made it rather obvious! I was trying to move around a little but once I had to get onto my knees everyone knew something was up. So I had to go off again. There was a chiropractor back stage with an assistant and they worked on me with massage and I went back on stage but it just hit again. I hit massive cramps and I couldn't stand up. I was being called up for the comparisons - how can they mark you if you are not there! -and secondly, the cramps were so bad that I didn't think I would be able to recover enough to come back on at the evening show. The second time I went off in that round, the round finished before I went back on again. So I missed a fair amount of time out there. The last time I didn't actually come off...the doctor pulled me out! I was in intense pain, I was on the floor! So there really didn't seem that much point in staying out on stage when I was kneeling on the ground, and in pain with these deep cramps that were sitting in my legs. It wasn't as if they were just hitting and going away, they were there! I could hardly walk off. I just barely hobbled off. I had to be helped down the stairs and then I collapsed on the floor. They gave me liquid potassium and a lot of fluid, tried to build up the electrolyte levels again. I mean obviously I had depleted myself. I had wanted to be as sharp, razor sharp, as I could be. I guess that with the heat of the lights and sweating on stage it just pulled out too much fluid and messed up my electrolytes."
So what went on between pre-judging and the evening show?
"For the three hours in between the pre judging and the night show I was having constant treatment. I was still cramping and I was starting to panic. I was getting my legs massaged and I got to the stage where I could hobble up to the stage and wait for my turn to go on. I was just crossing my fingers, hoping I could get through the routine without cramping up badly. I said to Steve, ‘If you see me on the floor, doing floor poses, you know that I have cramps' because I don't have any floor poses in my routine!
"When I was introduced, the guy explained to the crowd about all my cramping problems, which was very nice, very touching. As soon as I was introduced the crowd roared, and when I walked out on stage they just went crazy! The lift that gave me, I don't think I would even have felt the cramps!
"By the time the posedown came around, all the potassium, all the electrolytes, all the fluid, all the honey cake, all the bananas...everything I had been eating started to sink in and the cramps subsided so I didn't have a problem during the posedown. It was a very tough show though!"
A tough show yes...but one in which you still managed to grab third place despite all your difficulties. I guess the next answer is obvious, but what is the biggest lesson you learned from this experience?
"I guess maybe just to watch my fluid level a little bit more and be a little more careful with that. I learned positive things. I learned how well my diet went but probably, as far as mistakes go, the only mistake I made was maybe just the fluid level. I mean my skin was tight; you could hardly pull the skin off the back of my hand or the back of my arm. Perhaps I went a bit too far in trying for that perfection."
As you can see from this interview, Bev's sportswomanship, dedication and ‘show must go on' attitude has earned her a very special place in the history of women's bodybuilding. The fact that she still has the passion and dedication for bodybuilding even though her competing days are over is a reflection of her love and passion for the iron game. She's, without a doubt, one of female bodybuilding's greatest ambassadors and one of our sport's true champions!
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