Arnold Classic 2023 - Samson Dauda dominated the Open division | Results and report

If you ask people who follow bodybuilding only marginally what competitions they know, they will most likely tell you about Mr. Olympia and Arnold Classic. For the 35th anniversary edition, however, the organizers have increased the financial rewards for successful athletes, which this year brought together a total of up to 12 thousand athletes. As we informed you in our report, Friday's competition offered a particularly interesting battle in the Classic Physique category, which in the end went best for Ramon Quiroz, who improved one place from last year. Saturday's competition was then marked by the prestigious Open and other categories, which we will inform you about in this report.

The Open category was dominated by Samson Dauda

As usual, the Open category attracted the most attention. But this time there was definitely something to look forward to, because besides Nick Walker, who is defending last year's title, also the standard gigantic winner of the last Olympia Big Ramy, very aesthetic competitors like Andrew Jacked or William Bonac and also the heavyweight from France Samson Dauda announced their participation.

First of all, the semi-final heats took place, which definitely got the spectators in the mood for the upcoming finals. Andrew Chinedu was in the form of his life, earning his place in the first invocation honestly given his excellent muscle separation. He was joined there by Big Ramy, who has worked quite significantly on any weaknesses since Olympia, as well as Nick Walker, Samson Dauda and Shaun Clarida.

It then sort of became apparent from the subsequent invocations that Big Ramy would only be fighting for 4th or 5th place, as his form despite his improvement was still not quite there. On the other hand, Andrew Jacked, Nick Walker and Samson Dauda will most likely battle it out for the medals.

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The final, which took place late on Saturday in Ohio, made for an interesting spectacle, at the end of which Samson Daud was victorious, completing the free routine to classical music. He, along with Nick Walker, showed a form that was very hard for others to catch. So second place went to Nick and the imaginary bronze medal went to Andrew Jacked. Big Ramy took fourth place in the Top 5 and Shaun Clarida rounded out the top five. It is worth noting that due to the extraordinary increase in prize money over the last two years, the winner of this category will take home $300,000. Nick and Andrew were at least able to improve their mood with additional awards, with Nick winning the Most Muscular Award with a $10,000 bonus and Andrew winning the Best Poser Award with the same prize money.

Men's physique

The Open category was far from the only interesting category to watch. Last year's champion, Erin Banks, was among the ten well-prepared athletes, becoming the first athlete to win both the Arnold Classic and Mr. Olympia in the same year. Of course, he was one of the absolute favourites, but he could compete with, for example, Brazilian athlete Diogo Montenegro with five professional victories, Edvan Palmeira or Emanuel Hunter.

As expected, the finals presented a very interesting duel between Banks and Montenegro, which ended up a bit better for the former. Third place went to Emanuel Hunter, Victor Chaves finished fourth and Carlos DeOliveira took fifth place.

Bikini

The bikini category also offered ten well prepared athletes. Lauralie Chapados, who defends last year's title, was especially worth watching. She could compete with Jennifer Dorie, who won the Olympia in 2021, or Ashley Kaltwasser, who won the Olympia three times.And of course we must not forget Maureen Blanquisco, who won the last Olympia so far. As is probably clear from the performances of some of the competitors, there was no shortage of a well-matched battle. In the end, it turned out best for Lauralie Chapados. The other positions were then taken by Maureen Blanquisco, Jennifer Dorie, Ashley Kaltwasser and Romina Basualdo in that order.

And that's all from us for this report. In just one month, however, the Arnold Classic Brazil awaits us and you can look forward to hearing from us again.

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