Congrats to Mark Ritter for winning the Welterweight division at the Jr. National's.

Congrats to Rita Kaya for her 2nd place win in the middle weights.

They both looked wonderful. Way to go TEam!!

Mark - You looked great in the pics that I saw at graphicmuscle.com. You would never know that you had a serious muscle tear, amazing recovery from that injury. Outstanding job and top notch conditioning!

The graphic site has been very quirky, so I have not seen all of your pics or what the competiton looked like nor have I seen any of Rita's pics, but I see that the girl who she came in second to took the overall, so she certainly had some stiff competition.

Congratulations to both of you! I think that it is fantastic that so many of the BI staff are active competitors, and not only that - they are very strong competitors at that!

Congratulations Mark Ritter you had a awesome showing, the conditioning and vascularity was amazing.
DAC

wow mark looked amazing great job mark has always been one of my favorite bodybuilders anyway way to go bro

Thanks, VA! Just standing on that stage was an honor. I celebrated my 53rd birthday on stage! I don't believe in growing old gracefully, that's for sure.

Rita - You are not getting older - you are getting better Are there any pics of you from the show out there on any web sites? When I looked a while back at Graphic Muscle they had very few pics of the women and none of you.

Competing at that level and coming in 2nd at 53 is just incredible. Kudo's to you girl !!! You are a role model for others to follow.

Hi VA -

www.hardfitness.com/jrnats2006.html
has generously, and comprehensively, displayed many great pictures taken by Juan Carlos Lopez. (My thanks to Hardfitness and to Juan!)

The last thing I'm thinking about when getting ready to compete is pictures. I'm grateful for all the photographers out there who do such a professional job recording these events.

Thanks for the link Rita, now I am even more impressed. You looked great, and what a tough class! I'd say you had the winner beat in several areas - legs for one. The girl who was third had awsome conditioning. I bet that there were some split decisions on the score card.

Congrats again! I've already decided that I better not make you mad, it looks like you could take me out without too much trouble - lol

Keep up the great work!

congrats congrats congrats!!!!