Jamaica registered their most successful showing in its 60-year history of Bodybuilding and fitness, copping three gold and one silver at the recently-concluded 46th Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Bodybuilding and Fitness Championships in Dominican Republic.

The nine-member Jamaican team was among over 30 countries that participated in the Championships in various categories including Children’s Fitness, Men’s Fitness, Bodybuilding, Bikini Fitness, Women’s Fitness and Wellness. Approximately 400 athletes were said to have taken part.

Kemoy Brown, Deidre Lewis, Henry Graham and Weston McDonald were the Jamaicans who won medals for the team which returned to the island earlier this week.

Brown, who has won the Men’s Physique Medium Class and Overall of the Jamaica Amateur Bodybuilding and Fitness Association (JABBFA) National Championships for the last three years, brought his trademark conditioning and muscularity to the stage. His physique was the most aesthetically pleasing and detailed of the 14 competitors.

Brown overcame multiple flight delays, sleeping in the airport in Florida and misplaced luggage to top the 174cm category, after being forced to navigate the restaurants of Santo Domingo utilising his limited Spanish to ask waiters to serve lean chicken breast with no seasoning.

Lewis, fresh off her win in the Bikini Fitness Short Class at the JABBFA Nationals, used her monument and expertise of posing to outshine her nine competitiors, as she gracefully owned the stage in the 163cm category.

Graham, 53, was the most conditioned athlete on stage in the 198lb category. The veteran bodybuilder impressed with his posing, as he executed one of his slow but perfectly timed routines, showing off his eight-pack abs, mountain-sized biceps and back resembling a teenage mutant ninja turtle. He displayed muscularity and vascularity never seen before in his 30 years of competing.

Debutant Weston McDonald improved his conditioning for a well-chiselled look, which earned him silver against 11 competitors in the short class Men’s Physique 170cm category. The overwhelmed McDonald burst into tears of joy when the first runner-up was announced.

Rookie sensation Ricky James closed off his first full year of bodybuilding with a fourth-place finish in Men’s Physique 174 cm, while Jonhoi Vaughn and Adam Senior, placed fourth and fifth in Men’s Physique 182cm and 178cm categories, respectively.

Junior bodybuilder Rajae Grandison placed fifth and sixth in the Junior (Under-23) and 187lb categories respectively, with Duvaughn Dick placing seventh in the over 198lb Bodybuilding category.

President of the association Audrey Allwood-Mullings reiterated that Jamaica’s participation in these games would not have been possible without the support of the Ministry of Sports, Sports Development Foundation (SDF) and interCaribbean Airways.