OLD, Yea, that's Strydom. The younger version.
I can kinda recall the following regarding Gary's initial appearance within the bodybuilding world as we have a mutual friend who knew and trained with Gary way back when.
Feel free to correct me if and when I'm wrong as I'm almost positive that the following is to accurate but may be of interest and a bit controversial to youse BB fans.
Once upon a time .....
Gary appeared out of the blue from Africa. Was it Capetown?
Anyway ... he arrived in the good old USA in one of the southern states (Alabama? Or was it Texas?) where he impressed and trained with a friend of mine who was a Reconn Marine (recently GC discharged and a very hard trainer in keeping with the traditions of the Corps).
And soon enough Gary shows up in California and apparently appears to be a competitive threat to Arnold (or was it Franco?) as seen through the eyes of Mr. Joe Weider on behalf of his proteges ...... Arnold and/or Franco. (Or was it some other favored Weider competitor whom I have forgotten?)
And then some mysterious individual starts a rumor that Gary is seriously lacking when he hits a back pose (or something like that).
So Gary fails to receive the bodybuilding attention from Joe that he thinks he deserves (and many others think the same) so he signs up with Vince Mc..."something's" short-lived bodybuilding organization which irritates Joe (the IFBB) which means that Gary is placed on the top of the supposedly IFBB Shit List.
And then somehow Gary goes to Thailand for a visit (or was it an extended stay?)
.... And lived/lives happily ever after! Someplace.
Or something like that!
OLDTIMER, I'm surprised you did not recognize him in the above photo.
Oh Lord, Gary Strydom won the NPC Nationals in 1986. Arnold and Franco were long gone. This was the Haney era. Strydom was lacking in back, especially versus Haney. McMahon offered him big bucks to jump and Strydom smartly took it once he realized it wasn't going to happen beating Haney (or several others).
