Derek Lunsford came to Las Vegas as the defending Mr. Olympia with a clear message for his rivals. He left in third place, and he offered no excuses.
“This is my title. I worked for it for more than a decade. Nobody is taking it from me,” Lunsford said in May, as we reported at the time. On Saturday night Nick Walker won it, with Samson Dauda second and Lunsford third.
“It didn’t feel right” on Friday
Lunsford told Tony Doherty of NPC News Online after the finals that the problem started a day earlier, at prejudging.
“If I’m honest with you, even last night, it didn’t feel right,” he said. “I just felt like I was off. I was not at my best.”
He said his muscles did not feel like they were firing the right way, and that his peak never came together, despite arriving in Las Vegas confident that a lot of improvements had been made.
The scorecard shows how close Friday was and where Saturday slipped. Lunsford was one point behind Walker after prejudging, 9 to 8 (lowest total wins), then placed third in the finals with 15 points. He finished on 24, behind Walker’s 18 and Dauda’s 20. Our 2026 Mr. Olympia scorecard explainer walks through the numbers.
“You earned it”
Lunsford spent the weeks before the show trying to fire up his competition, and he did not back away from that afterward.
“I wanted to fire up my competition. I wanted to bring the best out of them, bring the best out of myself, and also I wanted to fire up the fans. And I think that’s what we got,” he said.
He said he congratulated the winner, and he shook Dauda’s hand as well.
“No excuses. Just didn’t come together tonight. And I told Nick, ‘Hey, you earned it. Good job.'”
Hearing the crowd
Lunsford also addressed the reaction he heard when third was called.
“It wasn’t exciting to hear a lot of people excited for me to get third. That kind of sucks,” he said. “But also, I know I have such great support.”
He thanked both groups. “Thanks to all the fans who support, even the ones that are rooting against me,” he said.
For all that, he praised the show itself, from the venue to the running order. “Everything was great this year except my place,” he said.
He has been here before
Third place is not new territory for Lunsford. The two-time Mr. Olympia and former 212 Olympia champion also finished third in 2024, one year after his first Sandow. In 2025 he won the title back, becoming only the second man after Jay Cutler to reclaim it.
His full Olympia record is on his athlete page, the story of the man who beat him is in our Nick Walker feature, Samson Dauda’s side of the night is in his interview, Samson Dauda’s side of the night is in his interview, and every score from the night is in our 2026 Mr. Olympia bodybuilding results.
