Bigger and better, Mr./Ms. Penn returns to Irvine

Now in its seventh year and boasting its deepest field ever, the competition returns to Irvine Auditorium tonight. The body oil has been purchased, the speedo has been taken out of the attic and the finishing touches have been put on the routine. The 40 hopefuls in the seventh annual Mr. and Ms. Penn Bodybuilding Contest can hardly wait for tonight's 7 p.m. start at Irvine Auditorium. They can't wait to pose, and, more immediately, they can't wait to eat. "I can't wait until it's over and I can start eating fatty foods again," College junior Josh Coleman said. "You never know how much you like them until you go without them." Each of the chiseled competitors in tonight's pose-down have been on a painfully restrictive diet for almost six weeks now. The week prior to the competition gets doubly brutal as the bodybuilders need to refrain from almost all carbohydrates. "The diet begins about six weeks before the show," said Tony Tenisci, event organizer and Penn assistant women's track and field coach. "This last week is the real hard week because they are doing stuff to hone everything up." This carbohydrate-deprived field will be the largest in the event's history. This year also marks the return of the very popular contest to its original Irvine stomping grounds. While the auditorium at the corner of 34th and Spruce streets was under renovation, the Mr. and Ms. Penn extravaganza moved west to the International House. "We're very excited about being back at Irvine," Tenisci said. "They spent something like 42 million bucks and the place looks it. I haven't had to do anything at all to the stage. It's just going to look perfect." Although Irvine often plays host to such staid events as visits from major political leaders, tonight its rebuilt interior will brim with with unchained exuberance. The contest's lineup boasts representatives from nearly every sector of the Penn community, including undergraduates, graduate students and staff. "They really express the best of Penn," Tenisci said. "There's the intelligence, the fitness and the diversity that I think are everywhere in this place. People here now have the facilities to express their interest in bodybuilding and it's great to see how they've taken advantage of it." There are between 200 and 300 tickets remaining for tonight's event. They can be purchased today on Locust Walk or at Irvine before the show. The program will be action-packed, so the earlier you show up the better, organizers said. Tenisci reports that the night will kick off with a warm-up performance by the Mr. and Ms. Penn "Fly Girls." This band of dancers is primarily composed of members of the Penn women's track team and they hope to get tonight's party started right. The contest is presented by the Penn women's track and field program and constitutes its principal fundraising event. "It's the fundraiser for our team," Tenisci said. "It gives me a chance to investigate some of my own interests, but it's a huge event for us." The male field includes 12 lightweights, eight middleweights and eight heavyweights. The muscle-definition of these hopefuls is daunting across the board, as even the little guys will awe and delight the crowd. "The lightweights are the killer," Tenisci said. "They look like Rand McNally out there. They have more lines on them than a roadmap." The lightweight men will be tonight's largest contingent, and, like every division, it boasts a wide assortment of competitors. Paul Reynolds, a third-year orthopedic resident at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, will take his first stab at bodybuilding competition tonight. The graduate of the University of Virginia medical school was a water polo player and track athlete as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins. He found his way into the lightweight field after Tenisci spotted him at the gym. "This is the only year where I have enough time to get in the gym to do something like this," Reynolds said. "It's been an interesting experience. I think the people around me will be pretty happy when it's over." The field of eight middleweights will also be keenly competitive tonight. Last year's division champ and eventual Mr. Penn Sheldon Martin has left for medical school, but last year's No. 2 Roger Wu and No. 3 Coleman are still vying for victory. "It's going to be competitive," said Coleman, who is a decathlete for the Penn track team. "Last year, I made a mistake with the diet and wound up losing muscle. I'm 22 pounds heavier this year and looking to do real well." The eight heavyweight men are, according to Tenisci, "cut more than any group I can remember." They will share the program with 16 female competitors, who will be evenly split into two divisions. In between the men's and women's competition, the Irvine crowd will have a chance to gawk at two guest posers -- John Rosado, a trainer at Sweat Gym, and David Silvester, who trains at Penn's own Gimbel facility. Tenisci and his compatriots have clearly pulled out all of the stops.