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Lee Priest Biography
Lee Priest "The Blond Myth"
Bodybuilder Tribute Biography
About Lee Priest
Statistics
Height: 5'4"
Competition weight: 203 lbs.
Off-season weight: 230 lbs.
Age: 25
Birthdate: July 6, 1972
Hair: Blond
Training since age 13
Arms: 20 3/4" (in competition, pumped) to 21 3/4" (off-season,
pumped)
Lee
Priest was born July 6, 1972, in Newcastle, New South Wales, a
90-minute drive north from Sydney. He was born to a "regular
working-class family," as he puts it, and as he reached his
teenage years, he began to dabble in rugby and karate. His grandfather,
a former army wrestler, enrolled young Lee in the local police
force's boys gymnastics club. The youngster had a habit of arriving
before the gymnastics class started and -- being the adventurous
lad he was -- working out with weights that were strewn around
the secluded corner of the gym. This introduction to barbells
and dumbbells occurred when Lee was 13.
Though he sported a lean and lithe physique that could never be
described as skinny when he started, after only eight months of
weight training, he had packed on impressive muscle size. In 1986,
at the age of 14, he entered and won three local junior bodybuilding
shows in quick succession against competitors three and four years
older.
Being onstage felt natural to him from the very first contest,
and with that mind-set, he decided to "take this bodybuilding
thing as far as I could." Initially, his family was a little
wary of young Lee getting involved in the "weird" sport
of bodybuilding, but they very quickly became supportive and have
remained so ever since.
A devoted reader of Flex and Muscle & Fitness, the teenager
became enamored with the Austrian Oak. "Arnold became my
idol," he says. As he progressed, Lee was increasingly drawn
toward the freaky look, as embodied by pros like Tom Platz and
Eddie Robinson. Lee's early 1994 resemblance to Platz, courtesy
of his dyed blond hair, is dismissed as a coincidence, and the
youngster has now reverted to his natural brown hue. In 1989,
at the tender age of 17, Priest won the Mr. Australia title, the
major one, not the teen division, and successfully defended it
in 1990 and 1991. Too big for Australia, Priest jumped the island
continent and took fourth in the lightweight division of the 1990
IFBB World Championships in Malaysia. The tiny terror then entered
the 1991 World Championships in Poland as one of the precontest
favorites, but in a major controversy, he failed the contest's
drug test even though he had tested clean (twice!) prior to leaving
Australia. Of that incident, Lee says candidly, "If I was
on gear [drugs], I wouldn't have been in the lightweight [154-pound]
class. I would have been at least 20 pounds heavier."
After the Polish debacle, Priest felt it was
time to strut his stuff among the pose-for-pay brigade. He applied
for his pro status with IFBB Pro Division Director Wayne DeMilia,
but DeMilia turned down the 20-year-old's request, saying he was
too young and not yet good enough to turn pro.
The Priest of pump thus became suspended in a kind of career limbo
in 1992. In April 1993, hungry for competition, he journeyed to
the States and entered the Niagara Falls open amateur contest,
which is staged in conjunction with the annual Niagara Falls Pro
Invitational.
A few days before that contest, Lee was in Gold's Gym, Venice,
hitting a few shots after a workout when he was spotted by NPC
President Jim Manion. Perusing the 181 cut pounds distributed
on Lee's 5'4" frame, the canny Manion exclaimed: "You
should be a pro."
After a flurry of red tape, Priest was consequently registered
as an IFBB pro on the morning of the 1993 Niagara Flass Pro Invitational,
and he duly made his debut with an impressive ninth-place finish.
Many observers of that show said he should have placed higher,
but in the slow-burn manner that personifies his character, Priest
in an interview. "As long as I'm in
my best shape and continue making progress, I'm content to let
the placings take care of themselves," he said humbly.
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