The 2024 Arnold Classic was full of surprises and memorable moments as Hadi Choopan seized his first title in Columbus, Ohio. In a recent video shared by the NPC News Online YouTube channel, IFBB Pro League Vice President Tyler Manion recapped the event and listed what improvements Samson Dauda and Hadi Choopan need to make for the next Mr. Olympia competition.
Over the weekend, the second-greatest gathering in bodybuilding took place from February 29 to March 3. The Men’s Open prejudging and finals were packed with action. Samson Dauda, who entered the contest as the reigning Arnold Classic champion, had no intention of surrendering his trophy quietly. He brought next-level fullness and considerable improvements to his back and shoulders.
Meanwhile, former 2022 Olympia Hadi Choopan displayed what many regarded as the best physique of his career, complete with striations and dry conditioning. In the end, the judges saw Choopan winning by ten points on the scorecards. With the 2024 Mr. Olympia on the horizon, Tyler Manion thought it would benefit the community to break down the top four, offering insight into how these athletes can improve for the sport’s biggest show of the year.
Tyler Manion Outlines What 2024 Arnold Classic Finalists Need To Improve For The Next Mr. Olympia
Check out Tyler Manion’s analysis below:
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Hadi Choopan
First, Tyler Manion acknowledged that Choopan’s victory was clear-cut, and mentioned it was his best package yet.
“First, we’ll go over the top two, Hadi and Samson. Now, normally in a lot of shows I would go pose-by-pose but at this show, we don’t really need to go pose-by-pose. Hadi had a pretty clear victory this past weekend. It was probably the best overall Hadi that we’ve seen when it comes to size, fullness, muscularity, and especially, conditioning.”
As for physique improvements, Manion shared that Choopan could use more size to his quads and more fullness in his chest.
“Hadi was on point both nights. Extremely striated and extremely full, it’s the best package that we’ve seen from him for sure. So when it comes to Hadi’s physique, what does he need to work on going towards the Olympia? Hadi can still use a little more overall to his legs. He could still use more overall to his quads. He can still use a little bit more size to his side leg.
These are the things that he needs to bring up when bigger competitors get close to the conditioning that he’s in. He could also use a little bit more fullness to his chest as you can see with these poses next to Samson, he doesn’t quite have the fullness and the roundness to the chest.”
Should the Iranian native shore up these issues, Manion believes he could make an undeniable statement at the 2024 Mr. Olympia.
“This is a little bit flatter but it’s extremely conditioned as you the striations all through the chest but he can definitely be fuller. These are all things he can work on to really try to come back and make a statement that he’s undeniable at the Olympia.”
Samson Dauda
Manion believes Samson Dauda needs to refine and tighten up his conditioning if he hopes to win a future Olympia contest.
“When it comes to Samson, he needs to get to that next level of conditioning. He’s pushing towards it but he has not quite nailed it yet on stage. This is the thing, he has two weeks to work towards in the UK to make a big improvement on that. When you look at Samson, you can see his arms and his shoulders have improved big time, even from this past Olympia.”
His back has been improving show to show but the deep lines and clear separation is what he really needs to focus on. He has such size, muscle fullness and roundness that he’s going to be really really hard to beat if he can bring that next level of conditioning. We need to see deep lines and deep separation all throughout his body.”
In addition, Manion implored Dauda to breathe through his chest instead of his stomach while posing.
“From the front and actually while he’s posing the whole entire time, he needs to breathe through his chest. You cannot breathe through your stomach while you’re posing. He has great abs and a small midsection, a very small midsection for how big he actually is, but it needs to be controlled the whole entire time while posing.”
Rafael Brandao
As for third-place finisher Rafael Brandao, Manion praised him as one of the biggest surprises of the night.
“I think he was probably the surprise of the show for me as the year off really did him well. Everything on him improved, he grew but stayed extremely balanced and kept an extremely small waist. Now, on Saturday night, we even put him next to Samson because we wanted to see how close he truly is to that next level that upper tier of bodybuilders. I would say he’s definitely pretty close.”
Manion adds that Brandao is ‘extremely dangerous’ because all his poses are strong, which is exceptionally rare.
“He really held his own. He looks like he’s another year or two away from doing exactly what he just did and continuing on the path to being extremely dangerous. One of the reasons why he’s extremely dangerous because for a bodybuilder this is extremely rare, but he has no weak poses.
There’s not one pose that stands out that he does that you say, yeah, you know what, you gotta say he’s going to lose that pose to somebody. Every pose is extremely strong which doesn’t happen. One thing he really needs to work on is adding more adductors to his legs.”
John Delarosa
Delarosa, who slid into fourth at the 2024 Arnold Classic, could benefit from more overall size, according to Manion.
“In fourth place, we have John Delarosa, this is definitely the best John that I can remember seeing. From all the way back from where he was competing five to six years ago making the Olympia.”
“Now, John is a little on the smaller side, especially in this lineup with some of these guys, but on Friday night it did not look like that with how he was presenting himself,” said Tyler Manion.
Tyler Manion never shies away from breaking down judging criteria or bodybuilding event results. Despite the controversy surrounding Derek Lunsford’s 2023 Olympia victory over Hadi Choopan, Manion quickly justified the outcome and stressed that a champion doesn’t need to be ‘knocked out’ to be dethroned.
The 2024 Mr. Olympia contest celebrates its 60th anniversary later this year from October 10-13 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Based on Choopan’s latest AC victory, he will enter the ‘Super Bowl’ of bodybuilding as the number one contender to Lunsford’s title.
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Watch the full video from the NPC News Online YouTube channel below:
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