Bodybuilding chief dismisses allegations of sexual exploitation
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/10/31/reaction-women-bodybuilding-ifbb-npc/Jim Manion, the leader of bodybuilding’s top federations, assured promoters who pay fees to host bodybuilding competitions that business would proceed as usual in the aftermath of a Washington Post investigation into the sexual exploitation of female contestants. “Rest assured, this will not affect our organizations at all going forward,” the Manions wrote in an email sent to competition promoters from an NPC account and signed by Jim Manion and his grandson, Tyler Manion, vice president of the two Pittsburgh-based federations, the amateur National Physique Committee and the IFBB Pro League. The email, obtained by The Post, said the articles were “unsubstantiated tales from unreliable sources” seeking to discredit the organization.
On Friday, Manion’s lawyer responded to The Post’s story with a two-page memo titled “Defamatory Articles Involving the IFBB Professional League, the National Physique Committee, and Jim Manion.” The letter states some sources cited in The Post’s story “possess a clear animus against my clients due to many prior disputes between the parties and/or the fact they are directly competing or seeking to directly compete against the NPC and/or IFBB Pro League,” wrote Brian H. Simmons, a Pittsburgh attorney with the firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney.