Phil Heath Will Compete At 2020 Olympia
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You read that right; 7-time Mr. Olympia Phil Heath will return to the Olympia stage this December to go for his 8th Olympia title! If he’s successful, this will tie the record of 8 wins held by both Ronnie Coleman and Lee Haney. Bodybuilding fans will remember in 2018, Phil lost the title to Shawn “Flexatron” Rhoden which ended his winning streak and gave Flexatron $400,000 in prize money, the largest payout in Olympia history at the time. After Phil’s loss, it came to light that he was still suffering from stomach problems linked to his 2017 double hernia surgery. This health issue affected his overall conditioning and aesthetics, especially around his midsection. Can surgery fix this and allow “The Gift” to return to the dominance he once had in the earlier part of his career? We’ll have to see…
Who Else Is Competing in the 2020 Mr.Olympia?
Shawn Rhoden is still in and out of the courts battling an alleged rape charge which unless settled before December 17th, will have him sitting this show out for a second year in a row. William “The Conqueror” Bonac, Roelly Winklaar, and Hadi Choopan are all qualified to compete in the Olympia, but all are restricted from travelling into the U.S. due to COVID-19 travel bans. So unless they can get a special athlete visa, they will not be allowed to compete. But last year, Hadi Choopan was granted this special athlete visa so don’t count any of these dudes out. That leaves Dexter Jackson, Brandon Curry (defending Olympia champion), newcomer to the open class Flex Lewis, Hunter Labrada (who just qualified last weekend by winning the Tampa Pro show), Cedric McMillan and Juan “Diesel” Morel. All these guys are all living in the U.S. and are already qualified for the Olympia. Fortunately, we still have other Olympia qualifying shows to make this an even more competitive lineup. Now if we could just get Kai Greene to enter the show, that would make for an epic battle of the ages!
The 2020 Olympia Weekend will take place on December 17th to 20th at Planet Hollywood Resort. For more info, visit MrOlympia.com