Something had to happen. Last year, during and before the Olympia, it was realized that way too many competitors were being qualified to the best and most elite contest of the year, resulting in 28 competitors just in bikini alone on stage. And crowding what should have been just the top 15-18 competitors only.

The fact that more contests were held during the year, and the top three (sometimes the 4th if the top three were already qualified) were getting in created a contest with a lot of bodies on the stage. So the IFBB went to the other extreme, and passed a rule that said starting in 2012, only the winner will be qualified to the Olympia. But what started to occur is that if the winner was already qualified, or if a top competitor was going to compete, then no one thought they would have a chance even to get into the Olympia. Now things have changed.

On March 13th, the IFBB Pro League announced that they had created the IFBB Pro Olympia Qualification Series, which will consist of a point based system which will determine who will be able to compete in the Olympia, for all six IFBB pro divisions that have contests there. This was great news to many of the competitors that saw very little hope. Such great news that quite a few of them were overjoyed at this news!

Even better news was that the announcement that the top five competitors with the highest point totals will qualify to compete at the O! Yes, we are going to see a frenzy of competitors vying for those top five positions. Now things are going to be even more exciting that we thought.
So how does this point system work… well, here we go.

If you win a show, you get nothing. No points. What would you need them for. You qualified! You are in! You can dance, jump, scream, yell, go to Disneyland, but you are definitely going to be on that stage come Olympia weekend. Also, the top five at the prevision Olympia are automatically qualified, as they should be. If you are one of the top five in the world, you can stay in the big dance without worrying. The points started in 2012, and there are varying types of tiers, depending on the contest. Here is the points system.

Tier 1 – The Arnold Classic Contest: 2nd place – 8 points. 3rd place – 7 points. 4th place – 6 points. 5th place– 5 points

Tier 2 – The Sheru Classic, and the Arnold Classic Europe. 2nd place – 6 points. 3rd place – 5 points. 4th place – 4 points. 5th place – 3 points

Tier 3 – the New York Pro. 2nd place – 5 points. 3rd place – 4 points. 4th place – 3 points.
5th place – 2 points

Tier 4 – the other IFBB Pro competitions. 2nd place – 4 points. 3rd place – 3 points. 4th place – 2 points. 5th place – 1 points