What is Mr. Olympia?

Here is what every beginner bodybuilder is dreaming about: the Mr. Olympia title. Let us see some things about this competition. It is held annually by the International Federation of Bodybuilders and winning this award is considered to be the highest title you can reach in your professional bodybuilder career.

Mr. Olympia was created by none other than Joe Weider in order to get the Mr. Universe winners to compete more and earn money. The first ever Mr. Olympia took place on the 18th of September, 1965 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City. The winner then was Larry Scott and the second winner was the same man in the following year.

As you might now, the record number of wins in the Mr. Olympica competition is of 8 wins, record held by Lee Haney (1984-1991) and Ronnie Coleman (1998-2005). The 2006 edition of Mr. Olympia is very interesting because it marked the first win of Jay Cutler, after he came second for 3 consecutive years. This is a great build up for this year's competition as everyone is wondering who of the two will be successful now. Others can be a surprise as well. Mr. Olympia is the biggest stage of bodybuilding and everything can happen there!

Contrary to popular belief, there are not many bodybuilders that won the title along the years. Arnold Schwarzenegger won it 7 times, Lee Haney and Ronnie Coleman 8 times, Dorian Yates 6 times, Frank Zane and Sergio Oliva 5 times, Franco Columbu and Larry Scott 2 times, Chris Dickerson, Samir Bannout and Jay Cutler once. So you can see, during the 42 Mr. Olympia competitions we only had 11 winners.