Bodybuilder Nick Walker after much consideration, has decided to remove himself from the 2024 Mr. Olympia lineup. In a video shared via YouTube on October 5, 2024, he and his coach Matt Jansen confirmed he won’t compete next weekend at the show’s 60th anniversary.
“It is Thursday afternoon October 3, this is not a video that we wanted to make especially after the video that Nick had to make last year but we made a decision this week for Nick to be not competing in this year’s Mr. Olympia,” his coach shared.
Walker was forced to sit out of the 2023 Mr. Olympia last season. He withdrew from the event just days before he was expected to step on stage due to a disastrous hamstring and calf injury. Anticipation about his return was one of the biggest talking points heading into the Super Bowl of Bodybuilding.
While he considered waiting for a special invite to the 2024 Mr. Olympia, he gambled by competing at Steve Weinberger’s New York Pro. While he won the event, there was criticism regarding the shape of his physique and concerns about his waist being too wide. His absence serves as a heavy blow to the absolutely stacked Mr. Olympia lineup this year which includes heavy hitters such as Derek Lunsford, Hadi Choopan, Samson Dauda, and Andrew Jacked.
Nick Walker Bows Out of 2024 Mr. Olympia, Says His Body Needs Time To Rest
Below, you can find Matt Jansen’s and Nick Walker’s statements on their decision to pull him from the event:
“It was a hard decision obviously this has been a very hard few weeks for us and just to be really, what we wanted to do in this video is just be truly transparent with you and honest with you about Nick’s been at,” said Jansen.
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“Honest truth is that Nick right now in terms of his body in terms of the bodybuilder that you guys know, his body is just not there. I’ve been wrestling with this for a couple weeks. Obviously Nick and I have had very intentional conversations but we feel that it’s best not only for himself, his career, what’s most important, but also for the Olympia, for the current physique that Nick has to not be represented on the Olympia stage.”
According to Walker, he was in a ‘very good spot’ going into this year’s Olympia prep but was unable to get his body ready for the competition.
“My body just said I need a break. I need to relax. That was it,” shared Walker. “I think a lot of the stress that I endured over the past year, it just kinda caught up and this prep obviously did not go the way we wanted it to and it sucks because this is the second year in a row that I got to miss the Olympia that I worked so hard for.”
He emotionally shared his thoughts on the unfortunate decision.
“There’s so many things that come into play because all I want to do is win the Olympia for myself and be Matt’s first Olympia winner, Open Olympia winner and it’s another year I got to fucking miss it. I refuse to step on stage than anything less than my best. I am still in my mind the third best bodybuilder in the world because that’s where I left.”
The way I was looking it just wasn’t going to be that way. So we made a very hard decision and said hey look, this isn’t your best package, this is certainly not going to be what we want to present on stage and we need to let my body chill and rest and regroup,” Walker shared.
Surely as more details emerge, fans will have a clearer understanding of exactly why Walker came to this conclusion. It should be noted that throughout prep for the Olympia, he opted not to share physique updates on social media, a vastly different approach to what he had done in the past.
The show must go on and the bodybuilding community expects an explosive celebration at the 2024 Mr. Olympia event, which is set to take over Las Vegas, Nevada from October 10-13 next weekend. Although this will certainly impact the Men’s Open lineup moving forward, history will still be on the line when the world’s best meet for the massive showdown.
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Watch the full video from Nick Walker’s YouTube channel below:
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