Who Judges Ms Olympia? A Public Record Compiled from 2020–2025

Last reviewed: 17 April 2026. This dossier will be updated as judging panels are made public or as the IFBB Pro League changes its disclosure practice.

The factual premise

The IFBB Pro League does not publish the judging panel for Ms Olympia. It does not publish the head judge. It does not publish per-round scoring, individual judge scorecards, a recusal policy, a conflict-of-interest disclosure, or a written appeals procedure accessible to competitors.

What exists, publicly, is a patchwork: the names of judges visible in stage photography when the panel is shown, the names of judges identified by athletes, coaches, or trade press reporters in the course of coverage, and the names of judges who are themselves public figures in the sport and whose presence at the event was not confidential.

This dossier compiles what is publicly known. It does not claim to be complete. Where a cell in the table below is marked “not publicly identified,” that reflects a gap in the public record, not a claim that a seat was empty.

The record, 2020–2025

Ms Olympia has run under Wings of Strength’s promotion since 2020. The judging panel is appointed by the IFBB Pro League, not the promoter. The distinction matters: Jake Wood’s promotional company runs the production, prize money, and broadcasting; the judging authority remains with the federation.

The pattern visible in the table is the dossier’s central finding: across six consecutive Ms Olympia contests, the federation did not publish the people who decided the outcome.

Observable structural gaps

No published recusal policy. When a judge has a documented coaching relationship with a competing athlete, or a sponsorship relationship with a brand endorsing a competitor, there is no publicly accessible document describing what the federation requires of that judge. Recusal may happen internally. There is no record of it happening publicly.

No published conflict disclosure. Judges are not required, by any public federation document we have located, to disclose coaching clients, athlete management relationships, sponsor relationships, or financial interests in supplement brands whose athletes are on stage. The figure skating equivalent — the ISU’s published officials’ code of ethics — exists as a baseline document that competitors, journalists, and national federations can reference. The IFBB Pro League does not publish an equivalent.

No published appeals mechanism. An athlete who believes she was misplaced has no document to initiate an appeal from. There is no form, no deadline, no appointed reviewer. Appeals, to the extent they happen, happen by private communication with federation leadership. The process is not adversarial, not transparent, and not reviewable by any third party.

Named on-record voices

Because the federation does not speak on the record about panel composition, commentary has accumulated from figures adjacent to the process.

NPC judge Kerry Champlin, in a widely circulated public statement covered in the bodybuilding trade press, described the NPC pipeline as “all about who you know and the money.” The remark was made in the context of Champlin discussing the path athletes take from regional shows to pro qualification. It is the speaker’s characterisation; it is not a claim, documented in that statement, about any specific contest or panel.

Lee Haney, after the 2025 Mr Olympia, stated in post-event commentary covered in the trade press that “you need world judges” — meaning, in the context of his remarks, that the apex event of the sport should draw from a broader, internationally credentialed pool rather than a domestic roster. The comment was widely interpreted as calling for more transparent and diversified panel selection. Haney did not name individuals and did not describe a specific panel.

Greg Doucette, the former professional bodybuilder and coach whose YouTube channel has been a persistent critical voice on judging, has had several videos analysing specific contest placings. Reporting in SportsRush and similar outlets in 2024 and 2025 documented copyright strikes on his judging-analysis videos originating from event rights-holders. The strikes were reported as DMCA actions targeting footage Doucette had used to make visual comparisons; Doucette has stated publicly that he considered the takedowns targeted at critical commentary rather than copyright protection. We reproduce the reporting neutrally: the takedowns are documented; Doucette’s characterisation is his.

What these three voices share is not a specific allegation. It is a structural one: a sport in which the people who decide outcomes are not publicly named, conflicts are not publicly disclosed, and critical analysis of decisions is exposed to copyright enforcement actions is a sport whose decisions are structurally difficult to scrutinise.

What other sports do

Figure skating — ISU panel disclosure

Since the post-2002 reforms and especially after 2016, the International Skating Union publishes the named judging panel for every major competition, including national federation affiliation. Per-element Grade of Execution scores are published per judge. The code of ethics governing officials is a public document.

NBA — referee transparency reports

The NBA publishes Last Two Minute reports reviewing referee calls in close games, publishes referee performance data in aggregate, and publishes the names of the officiating crew for every game. None of this eliminates referee controversy; it places it inside a structure where specific claims can be checked against specific records.

Federation response

SteelQueens contacted the IFBB Pro League requesting comment on (a) whether the federation would consider publishing the judging panel for each Ms Olympia, (b) whether a written recusal or conflict-disclosure policy exists, and (c) whether a written appeals procedure exists that competitors can consult.

• IFBB Pro League: [Pending outreach — placeholder]

We will update this dossier if and when a response is received.

Methodology

Named panel members and head-judge attributions were compiled from trade press coverage (Fitness Volt, BarBend, Generation Iron, NPC News Online) of each Ms Olympia between 2020 and 2025, supplemented by athlete and coach social posts that identified individuals present at judges’ meetings or seated on the panel, and by spectator photography of the judges’ row published in the trade press. We did not attempt to identify judges from photography alone without corroborating textual identification. Where the public record does not contain a corroborated identification, the cell reads “not publicly identified as an official panel roster” — this is a statement about the public record, not a statement about internal federation knowledge. Full methodology at /methodology/.

This article was drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by the SteelQueens editorial team. Any new information about Ms Olympia judging panels will be added to the public record on this page.