At the 2020 Olympia Weekend, taking place on Dec. 17-20 at Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas, the following three former Olympia champions are making comebacks. Firstly, Adela Garcia, who won eight Fitness Olympia titles, the last one being 2013. Also returning is Oksana Grishina, winner of four Fitness Olympia titles, the last one being in 2017. And last, but certainly not least, is Iris Kyle, winner of ten Ms. Olympia titles, the last being in 2014.
It’s always something special when one former champion returns to the bodybuilding stage, nevermind three in one weekend. With that in mind, it’s pertinent to review the history of Olympia comebacks, commencing in chronological order.
Some of these champions returned and showed why they had been crowned the best in the first place, while others fell short of glory.
Either way, it was surely a spectacle to witness — just as you’ll want to watch the stage as Trifecta presents Joe Weider’s Olympia Fitness & Performance Weekend, brought to you by Wings of Strength and by Northern Chill. Tickets to the December 17-20 event are on sale at MrOlympia.com.
Arnold Schwarzenegger won six straight Olympia titles (1970-75) before, after a five-year hiatus, returning to Olympia competition in 1980 with another victory. At that event he couldn’t replicate his form or bodyweight of previous years, and so for the first and only time in his career he was booed.
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Courtesy of Weider Health and Fitness
FRANCO COLUMBU: 1981
The Sardinian Samson won the 1976 Mr. Olympia soiree and later that year entered The World’s Strongest Man contest, where he suffered a horrendous injury to his left leg, which seemingly ended his sporting career.
However, in 1981 he entered the Olympia and won in circumstances even more controversial than the previous year’s Mr. O. Most pundits had him fourth at best with gyno clearly visible and a left leg that had not been returned muscularity wise to days of yore. Most saw the contest between Chris Dickerson, Danny Padilla and Tom Platz.
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LOU FERRIGNO: 1992
At 24 years old, Lou Ferrigno finished third in the over 200 pound class at the 1975 Mr. Olympia bash and was nominated as heir apparent to the retiring Arnold Schwarzenegger. But at that point he had been recruited for the lead role in “The Incredible Hulk” TV series, which curtailed any competitive bodybuilding plans.
In 1992, age 41, he entered the Mr. Olympia and despite much hoopla, his 6’5”, 300-pound package was adjudged 12th — though one judge marked him first. He returned to take the 10th spot a year later before bowing out of competition with a silver at the 1994 Masters Olympia.
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Bill Dobbins
JULIETTE BERGMANN: 2001
Holland’s Juliette Bergmann was an outstanding competitor during the 1980s. She competed in four Ms. Olympia contests, her highest placing being sixth in 1986. The possessor of outstanding symmetry, she retired after the 1989 season before making a sensational Olympia return at 42 years old in 2001.
At that contest, she won the lightweight division before beating heavyweight winner Iris Kyle in a posedown for the overall title. She again took top honors in the lightweight division in 2002 and 2003 but lost the overall to heavyweight winner Lenda Murray.
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Bill Dobbins
LENDA MURRAY: 2002
Having won six successive Ms. Olympia titles (1990-1995), Lenda Murray then finished runner-up to Kim Chizevsky in 1996 and 1997. She returned in 2002 to win the heavyweight and overall Ms. Olympia titles — a feat she repeated in 2003. She bowed out in 2004 after taking the heavyweight runner-up spot behind Iris Kyle, who won the overall.
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Bill Dobbins
IRIS KYLE: 2006
Having won the overall at the 2004 Ms. Olympia, Iris Kyle promptly finished second to Yaxeni Oriquen a year later. She reclaimed the title in 2006 as a precursor to a run of nine successive victories before calling it a day with her 2014 win. Her accumulation of 10 Olympia wins stands as a record in any division.
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Courtesy of Weider Health and Fitness
JAY CUTLER: 2009
After finally wresting the Olympia crown from Ronnie Coleman in 2006, Jay Cutler squeaked out a close victory over Victor Martinez in 2007. In 2008 he relinquished the title to Dexter Jackson and the consensus was the Olympia glory days of the Boston Mass were over.
But in perhaps the greatest Olympia comeback ever, he reinvented his physique in 2009 and was ripped and full beyond anything he had previously presented. As soon as he walked out, and, in an iconic moment, flicked the cross striations on his thighs, the title was all but his.
