Diamant bikinis, false eyelashes and fake tan paired with bulging biceps, solid quads and rock-hard abs a new sort of beauty pageant? WH has a backstage pass to the increasingly mainstream world of the bikini fitness competition.
I am backstage at a creaky, ageing theatre, watching fake-tanned women – in huge false eyelashes and plumped-up, painted lips – queue. They queue to sign in; they queue to be painted with oil; they queue to collect their competitor numbers, which they pin to their bikini bottoms and, finally, they queue to go onstage. Today, they live to queue. As they stand in line, I initially think they look like extras in a bad science-fiction flick – a battalion of female soldiers seconded as sex slaves – muscular, fetishised Disney princesses. But that is only a first impression; later I am dazzled by their commitment to the possibilities of their own bodies.
Even so, the cognitive dissonance is extraordinary: the fittest women I have ever seen, painted like dolls. A glittering army. As they wait to compete (they’re in the national finals of a bodybuilding championship), they are at once nervous and excited. They have trained a whole year for this day – for some, even longer. For them it is more than just a hobby or a vocation – it’s salvation.
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