GABBFF Seniors 2018… Space Gym’s Kerwyn Clarke reclaims Mr. Guyana crown – Fans show disapproval after heavyweight placing

Jul 17, 2018 Sports

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Story and photos by Franklin Wilson

The 2018 edition of the Guyana Amateur Body Building & Fitness Federation (GABBFF) ended with former Mr. Guyana Kerwyn Clarke of Space Gym reclaiming the title from a field of five competitors but the show did not end in good taste for the faithful fans who turned up at the Parc Rayne Event Centre, Rahaman’s Turn, Houston, East Bank Demerara on Sunday night last.
The night got underway over 35 minutes late, after the scheduled advertised starting time of 19:00hrs and during the show fans had to be listening carefully for the posing routine announcements as the audio and at times lighting, was not of the best quality.
Nonetheless, the faithful supported and tagged along as they lent some semblance of understanding to the circumstances but the tolerance levels of the fans exploded when the results for the penultimate category (Heavyweight) was announced.
The seven member judges’ panel, supervised by Chairman of the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Judges Panel, Mr. Errol Williams of Antigua & Barbuda found themselves in unchartered territory more or less, given the fact that FIBB Judges standards had to be adhered to in its totality.
Through the eyes of the fans and athletes as well as media personal present, the final placing for the heavyweight class should have gone quite differently but the rules governing the sport had to be followed to the T, which would have not necessarily been the case in Guyana for the past two years or so.
The move by the GABBFF to have the refresher course has certainly brought the sport in line with IOFBB Judges standards, painfully so, but in the long run would redound to the benefit of the athletes; education would be key to ensure all stakeholders are brought up to speed. Kaieteur Sport would seek to enlighten all in a subsequent article.
Back to the show, Clarke, as has been the case in his previous four championship wins, was in a class of his own as he waltzed to the Mr. Guyana title after first winning the Light Middleweight category in a two-way clash with elder statesman and a former Mr. Guyana, Lindie Sharpe, representing the Universal Barbel Club.

In his hey-day, Sharpe might not have been an easy walk over for the young Clarke, the latter was in pristine condition and it was an easy stroll into the Overall showdown which saw him coming up against 17-year veteran Marlon Bennett (Fitness 53) who won both the Masters and Lightweight Classes; Caerus Cipriani (Life Gym) the lone competitor in the Welterweight category, Chatram Nagassar (Fitness 53) Bantamweight winner and the Heavyweight winner, Carlos Petterson who represented Home Gym.
Usually, the showdown among the respective body building category winners would be hotly contested but owing to the earlier decision in the Heavyweight showdown, more than half of the fans had left the venue and this took with it the high energy levels that were being displayed by the various supporters of the respective athletes.
As a matter of fact, there is also the usual comparison that is requested by the Judges and even the pose down to a choice of music by the DJ, but none of this was done. In fact, the announcer, GBBFF President Coel Marks would normally announce the positions from the bottom before reaching to the overall winner; this too was not the case.
Clarke was straightaway declared the Overall winner, the announcer was even asked to repeat himself as the transmission was not clear enough owing to the quality of audio which was a challenge all night.
Earlier in the show, the Open Men’s Physique showdown between 2017 winner, Yannick Grimes (Space Gym) and the then dethroned Emmerson Campbelle (Fitness 53) saw the latter athlete turning tables on the former in a close battle to reclaim the crown.
The Ms Bikini competition was a three way tussle which saw Fitness Paradise’ Chadani Khan out posing the Space Gym duo of Angelina Barrones and Digiula De Souza to claim the top spot, trophy, Fitness Paradise hamper and Ministry of the Presidency cash prize of $100,000.
Campbell and Clarke were also presented with $100,000 cash prizes from the Ministry of the Presidency by Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Department of Sport, Melissa Tucker.

GABBFF President Coel Marks commented on the issue of the judge’s decision: “Because we did our judges seminar and the upgrading, there are certain international compliance issue that we had with past shows that were corrected. We did have a lot of upsets, a lot of patrons were not happy with the results but the judge’s decision is final.
We’ll be having a forum to ventilate all these issues within the coming week; we’ll have an open discussion with all our patrons and judges to clarify. But there were a number of persons that were disappointed with the results, but there are things like I said before that we were non-compliant with in terms of our judging and those areas were rectified by virtue of hosting the seminar.”
Marks noted that going forward athletes would be much more educated on what is expected on stage and concomitantly, patrons would also be more edified on what to expect when attending such shows.
Marks also stated that the show was another success and the turnout was good. The resources garnered from the show would go towards assisting the athletes that would be attending the CAC Championships in Mexico, this month end.
”We’re very happy that we had a strong attendance and we are able to utalise the resources garnered here to make sure our athletes are comfortable when they go to fly that Golden Arrowhead abroad.”
Among the sponsors were Fitness Express, Secure Innovations and Concepts, Ghandi’s Store and Zoon Business among others.

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