Samson Dauda aims to replicate the formula that won him the Mr. Olympia title back in 2024. In a September 6 video, the Open star confirmed his entry for the upcoming Europa Pro, which will take place just 11 days before the 2026 Olympia.
“It gives us a lot of information. It gives her a lot of things to understand. Mel already knows how to peak me. She nails peak weeks every single time for me. But it’s just making sure that we are very clear; my body responds exactly the way it normally does.”
Two years ago, Dauda reached the top of the Men’s Open class. He jumped into the 2024 France Pro and won the contest two weeks before the Mr. Olympia. The test run gave Dauda valuable information about his peaking process, and he used it to his advantage. In Vegas, “The Nigerian Lion” secured his lone Sandow trophy, defeating frontrunners Hadi Choopan and Derek Lunsford.
In pursuit of better conditioning, Dauda overcorrected and came in flat at the 2025 Mr. Olympia. He finished fourth and watched Derek Lunsford earn his second title. Still undersized, Dauda tried to bounce back at the Prague Pro but suffered a crushing loss to Martin Fitzwater. Having taken a lengthy off-season, Dauda believes a pit stop before the Olympia could be his winning ticket.
Samson Dauda Competing at Europa Pro, Won’t Go Into 2026 Mr. Olympia Peak Week ‘Blind’
In a recent YouTube video, Dauda revealed that he’ll participate in the Europa Pro as a warm-up show before the Olympia.
“Instead of saying we are three weeks out, we are officially one week out from Germany. The European Championships, Europa Pro – so, a lot of people always ask me; I get a lot of messages about this one, all the time. Are you going to do a warm-up show? I’ve been getting bombarded with this constantly. The answer to this is officially yes, I will be doing a warm-up show,” he said.
He shared that his reason for competing was in response to how last year’s season unfolded:
“The reason why we obviously wanted to do it, we all saw what happened in 2024 and what happened last year. We know my body has changed drastically. You saw at the beginning of this prep how quickly I was responded to everything and how quickly we had to backtrack, double down, and change things around.”
According to Dauda, this will give him information to peak more effectively for the 2026 Mr. Olympia:
“When it comes to peak week, it’s extremely difficult to go into peak week blind.”
“It answers a lot of things for us. It makes us think, okay, for the look that we have right now, it gives us a chance to not just throw it all on the cards on this one moment at Olympia for 20 minutes; you have to nail it or that’s the end. This way we get a chance to try something out on that high-stress situation and see how my body responds.”
Given that he hasn’t competed in nearly a year, Dauda also argued the time onstage could help him out mentally.
“Even for me, being onstage and working on my confidence of being onstage again, because it’s been 12 months. Just being back onstage, some people who have competed before probably understand this. You have this whole idea of how you want to be onstage, and how you want to pose, and how you want to present your physique onstage. You go onstage for the first time, and it almost becomes a blur.”
Bodybuilding veterans think they have Dauda’s winning strategy figured out. Samir Bannout, a former 1983 Mr. Olympia, recently said that if Dauda’s upper body matches the definition in his legs, he’ll win the event hands down.
Dauda’s risky decision could pan out two ways: he could win, gain data, and thrive on the Mr. Olympia stage, or he could mistime his peak, come in off, and lose steam ahead of the ‘Super Bowl of Bodybuilding.’ Time will tell whether this last-minute move pays off. The 2026 Mr. Olympia is set for September 24-27 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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