Ronnie Coleman Accepts Lifetime Achievement Award

Contest coverage for the 2024 Tampa Pro Show is sponsored by MUTANT!

There aren’t too many bodybuilding trophies that Ronnie Coleman doesn’t have, but one that he never had was the prestigious Ben Weider Lifetime Achievement Award. That changed at the 2024 Tampa Pro in Tampa, Florida on August 3, 2024, when Coleman was bestowed the honor in front of the crowd in attendance and fans watching from home on the show’s livestream.

The award is named after IFBB co-founder Ben Weider, who was a founding father of the bodybuilding industry alongside his brother, the great Joe Weider. While Joe promoted bodybuilding and fitness through his many publications, Ben led the charge on the stage as the head of the IFBB.Photo: Raymond Cassar

Both Weider brothers left an impact on fitness that is felt to this day. Weider himself received the honor in 2008 as the first honoree. He passed away later that year.

Past recipients of the Ben Weider Lifetime Achievement Award include fellow eight-time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney, four-time Arnold Classic champion Flex Wheeler, legendary writer Peter McGough, Olympia President Dan Solomon, and several others.

Coleman was recognized with the 2024 honor because of his accomplishments onstage as well as his contributions off stage. The eight-time Mr. Olympia and 2001 Arnold Classic champion retired in 2007 with 26 pro wins, a record for male bodybuilders at the time. It has since been broken by Dexter Jackson with 29.

After his retirement, Coleman had undergone over a dozen surgeries for back, hip, and neck issues he faced. Part of his journey was chronicled in the Generation Iron documentary Ronnie Coleman: The King. Throughout it all, he never stopped training and living the bodybuilding lifestyle. He has shared several videos of himself in Metroflex Gym putting in work lifting “light weight, baby.” In recent years, Coleman has started receiving stem cell treatment and feels optimistic about his chances of walking without crutches again.

Even while trying to improve his health, he travels the world to meet and inspire fans as well as promote his supplement brand, Ronnie Coleman Signature Series. He is also active with his own YouTube channel.

Decades after he started yelling out “yeah buddy” and “ain't nothing but a peanut” while pressing 200-pound dumbbells or squatting and deadlifting 800 pounds, many gym goers around the world still echo his chants before setting their own personal records. Coleman’s legacy will be remembered for many years to come just from that.

Coleman expressed gratitude for the honor in a post on Instagram. “I’m Honored to receive this year’s Ben Weider Lifetime Achievement Award!! Thank you to everyone who came out to the Tampa Pro and thank you to @mrolympiallc for this truly amazing award….YEAH BUDDY!!!!”

This is Coleman’s second Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2021, he received the Arnold Classic’s Lifetime Achievement Award from fellow bodybuilding legend and seven-time Mr. Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 2016, he was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame.

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