Written by Peter McGough
26 December 2013

 ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: THE BIGGEST EVER CONTROVERSY!

The Paula Bircumshaw Affair

This week’s release of the competitors for the 2014 Arnold Sports Festival to be staged in Columbus, Ohio, from February 27 through March 2, brought into sharp relief that missing from the schedule was the women’s bodybuilding Ms. International contest. The Ms. International had been held every year since the 1989 inception of the Arnold weekend, and the Columbus muscle jamboree never witnessed a wilder night than the finals of the 1992 rendition. Read on.

1992 REVISITED
A “new” judging initiative — to curtail the overly muscular look among women professionals that had marked 1991 — was introduced at the 1992 Ms. International contest of February 29. The fact that this initiative was only outlined to the competitors and officials a few days prior to the event led to, in every sense of the phrase, mass confusion.

 Because what the “new” judging initiative didn’t need was the mass confusion component of a 5'7", 155 pound, ultra muscular and symmetrical female package, possessing more cuts than an Arnold Schwarzenegger suit retailored for Danny DeVito. Cue Paula Bircumshaw, who was to British female bodybuilding at the time what Dorian Yates was to the men’s sector.

That the redoubtable musculature of the Blonde Shocker (a title awarded by your humble scribe in 1989) was not going to leap to the forefront on this leap year day was clear from the way the callouts went at the prejudging. Paula wasn’t called out until late in the prejudging and she was finally adjudged eighth.

At the time, I wrote: “Although Paula and I share the same nationality (and I trust, a friendship), personal bias does not prompt me to state that if there is a more head-to-toe symmetrical (i.e., every muscle group proportionately developed on a balanced frame) female bodybuilder than Paula currently competing, I have yet to see her!”

In the evening, Paula’s prejudging fears were confirmed when she was not one of the six called out for the final posedown. I went backstage to see how my pal was taking it. As I did, the audience started chanting, “Paula! Paula!” I got back and she was standing there, fully dressed in sweats and holding her training bag. She looked toward the stage and said in her strong East Midlands accent, “Eeee, I can’t leave it like that — here, hold me bag.” Thrusting the bag into my arms, she proceeded to the side stage area, poked her head around the curtains and smiled cheekily at the chanting audience, who erupted at the scene being played out before them. She then, with hands in her pockets, swaggered out onstage as the collective jaws of the posedown finalists (who were doing their mandatories) dropped faster than Big Ramy bungee jumping. She then held out both hands toward the finalists (who comprised and finished in this order: Anja Schreiner, Debbie Muggli, Laura Creavalle, Sharon Bruneau, Nancy Lewis and Tonya Knight) and then pointed toward herself. The audience went nuts. Casting a mischievous smile toward the judging panel, she then made a certain gesture that warned of deafness if overused. By now many of the audience were on their feet applauding and the decibel rating kept ratcheting up.

With the audience still baying, Paula slowly left the stage. As she came up to me she said, still grinning, “I’ll get suspended for life won’t I?” I answered, “Nah — I don’t think anyone really noticed. Let’s go get a drink.”

OH, PAULA!
To leave the theater, we had to come out of a door that opened to the side of the auditorium. We came through the door with me carrying Paula’s bag. As soon as the spectators nearest the door saw her, they began to raucously call her name and clap. She reacted by walking along the aisle on the right of the auditorium waving both hands in the air and blowing kisses. The posedown finalists were still onstage. By now, the entire theater could see her and row after row jumped to their feet to give her a standing ovation. But the English lass wasn’t finished. She began to jog and then ran to the front and center of the theater, and right in front of the VIP section jumped up and down (it was leap year day) punching the air with her fist. The atmosphere was pure bedlam. With the noise unabated, she then made her way back to her training bag and me. “Well?” She asked.

 

 So as to make her hear, I had to scream back. “I think they noticed this time.” To thunderous acclaim, Paula — accompanied by a bag-carrying McGough — then walked, with her head held high, out of the theater and seemingly out of bodybuilding. The tableau she played out appeared suicidal, but such was the furor it created that the whole episode made a Viking funeral seem passionless. In the bar afterward, I asked her, “When you were at the front of the stage, why didn’t you whip your top off and show them some muscle?” “Eee lad, ’cause I didn’t have a bra on.” She then paused and with a quizzical look said, “Perhaps I should have . . . shall I go back?”

 

Postscript 1: The IFBB was — for the times — extremely lenient with Paula. For the most visible episode of athlete dissent ever recorded, she was handed a six-month suspension. She competed two more years, but a back injury and a dwindling disillusionment with the sport took its toll. Today, she lives in her hometown of Mansfield, England, owns a gym, runs local bodybuilding contests, and is an accomplished competitive horse rider She is married to British bodybuilding champion Steve Riddoch and they have one son, Connor/

Postscript 2: For being very visible and supportive throughout, what some saw as, Paula’s lap of dishonor, and for accompanying her to the banquet (with my wife Anne), I was told by a senior Weider executive that my days working for Joe would soon be over almost before they had begun. I gave him a two-word response, the second word being “off.” Well, I never heard a word of reprimand from my bosses. Two years later, Mr. Negative was invited to leave the company and I stayed another 17 years. The bottom line is the fun-loving Paula has a uniqueness of spirit, and there was no way I was not going to stand by brave my pal on that wild, wild Columbus night of nearly 22 years ago.

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