Christine Pomponio: The Return of the Original Petite Giant?

2026 has been an eventful year for Christine Pomponio...good and not-so-good. We won't post them here out of respect for her, but they are serious enough for her to not do Petite USA (a pageant she has done since 2022) nor will she defend her Ms. Elite Universal Global USA title. However, on her social media post on July 7, she mentioned that she was not done with the pageant world...but also alluded to stepping back on the IFBB stage for the first time in 2 decades. She has KINDA brought it up here and there but for the first time in YEARS, Christine has really sounded more willing to dust off the clear heels and run it back one more time. We've been rooting for this for a while, as you can see in a previous post we made, but it looks like in 2027 or 2028, we might be getting our wish to see one of the original figure queens back on a physique stage. 

Here is what she said on her Instagram and Facebook regarding a potential run-back on the IFBB stage as well as also continuing to be part of the pageant world as well:

To be honest, I am highly considering also getting on stage once again returning to Fitness competitions. Being an IFBB professional fitness competitor, I am getting the desire to return, it has been 19 years since I became pregnant and thought that my winning streak and fitness journey for years was over. However, I am not yet finished with the pageant side of my career either.

Christine in her three Olympia appearances (2004-2006)

Let's be real...who says she can't do both? Definitely not us! There have been quite a few pageant women that have also stepped on physique stages in the same year and have done quite well in both. They didn't choose one or the other. They were wise in how they trained depending on if they were doing traditional pageants or physique competitions. And Christine?! She has had YEARS of training experience, so she knows what she needs to do, depending on where she wants to step on stage at. And as far as Christine stepping on stage, she has more choices to compete in. She can remain in figure, or she can go for bikini, wellness, or fit model. If the IFBB is something she really wants to do next year, expect her to get her training going at some point this year once she is able to get her ordeals in order. 

Christine's Petite USA appearances (2022-2025)

And for those that have followed us for years, you know we have been Team Christine long before FitGems Nation was even a thing, so best believe we will be keeping you all informed on what she plans to do in 2027 and beyond. For those that can remember, Christine was the first petite woman to dominate the figure division, where being small was a disadvantage, but she was determined to make her height a strength, which she successfully did with a pro win, 2 Figure International appearances (both top 6), and 3 Olympia appearances (top 6 in all of them, with her last one in 2006 being in the top 4). How cool would it be to see the Original Petite Giant return to the IFBB one final time and also how cool would it be for her sons to see how their mother got her name in the first place?! That ALONE is motivation to step back on stage. All we know is 2027 could turn out to be a VERY interesting year one of the First Ladies of Figure...and we can't wait to see how all of this unfolds!

Christine winning the 2005 IFBB Tournament of Champions Pro Figure and 2025 Elite Miss Universal Global USA

For more on Christine, make sure to follow her on Facebook (main page and fan page), Instagram, and Threads.

More Details on Christine Pomponio’s Petite USA Campaign Including People’s Choice

Earlier this year on our blog, we talked about IFBB Legend Christine Pomponio competing at the Petite USA Pageant this year. The Petite USA organization has launched a People’s Choice contest. The winner of the contest will make the Top 16 automatically and will be announced on August 13, the day of the Petite USA Finals. It’s a dollar ($1) a vote, and you can vote as much as you want. So realistically, you can vote 100 times ($100) or 1,000 times ($1,000) or even more than that! Proceeds from each vote will go to the Stop Soldier Suicide organization. Click here to view more on Stop Solider Suicide. We’ll provide the link below for Christine.

As stated in our previous blog post, Christine will represent Colorado under the Elite Ms. Petite division. The National pageant will take place from August 10-13 at the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  August 10 will be the State Costume Contest. The Preliminary Competition (Mrs./Elite Ms.) will take place August 12th at 6PM with the Finals taking place the following day (August 13) at 2pm.  The Elite Ms. Petite division will compost of the following parts/scoring: Personal Interview (35%). Activewear (25%), Evening Gown (25%), and On-Stage Question (15%). BTW, the Teen, Miss, and Ms. divisions will have swimwear instead of activewear. While we know Christine would absolutely SMOKE the swimwear category, we have a feeling she’s gonna wow folks just as much in the Activewear portion. Click here for all ticket information.

The fact that Christine is stepping on any kind of stage for the first time since the 2006 Figure Olympia (where she placed in the top 5, making her one to the top five figure competitors in the world at that time) is pretty exciting, and anyone who has followed FitGems Nation knows the amount of respect and admiration we have for one of the First Ladies of Figure. As cool as this will be for her next month, a part of us hopes very sincerely this will lead to her doing at least ONE MORE IFBB show. Figure, Bikini, Wellness…it doesn’t matter. Just one more show in the IFBB. Anyone who has checked out her social media over the last year or so would probably agree with us on this. We’ve seen quite a bit of competitors come back to do a show of two over the last decade, and with the masters divisions having their own World Championship now, expect even more to do so in the years to come. Why not Christine one day?! 

To say we are excited for Christine is putting it mildly. Regardless of how far she goes in the pageant, we at FitGems Nation can’t express our excitement enough for one of the figure division’s greatest competitors. It’s pretty appropriate that one of the ladies that broke the glass ceiling for smaller competitors gets to compete in a pageant that is literally tailor made for her. Elite Ms. Petite USA Christine Pomponio…that sounds nice to us, and could become a reality next month! Good luck Christine!

Click here to vote on Christine in the Petite USA People’s Choice contest. For more on Petitie USA as well as their social media platforms, go to http://www.petitieusa.com.

Christine Pomponio To Compete in a New Kind of Stage in 2022

We have stated in the past that we would love to see figure original Christine Pomponio return to the stage one day. Well...in 2022, we will FINALLY get that wish...but NOT in the way you might think. Yes, Christine will be stepping on stage in 2022, but not on an IFBB stage...not yet anyways. Instead she will be stepping on the Petite USA stage represeting as Elite Ms. Colorado Petite 2022. 

So...you're probably asking yourself...what is Petite USA? Here's the history of it via their website:

The Petite USA Pageant was founded in 2009 by Hazely Lopez-Alvarez with a vision to empower and celebrate petite beauty, 5'6 or less. The USA Petite Pageant focus on celebrating the accomplishments of petite women and provides them opportunity to be a voice and spokesmodel for petite women around the United States.

Petite USA is the official United States preliminary to the Miss Universal Petite pageant. The winners in both our Miss and Teen divisions will represent the USA at Universal Petite. These two ladies will compete against petite women from all over the world for the coveted titles of, Miss Universal Petite and Teen Universal Petite. 

With a vision of serving, Petite USA is more than just a pageant. The Petite USA Family is a sisterhood that embraces healthy competition and a heart to serve others through our leadership and outreach. Each contestant is asked to champion a "Personal Platform" that is near and dear to her heart to encourage leadership, community service, and kindness. 

Our areas of competition include swimsuit, evening gown, judge interview, and on-stage question. We are looking for poised, graceful, and passionate ladies that understand that their height is no limitation to fulfilling their dreams.

 

As you can see, Christine fits this platform perfectly, as she is five foot one. At that height, she is also one of the shortest women to ever compete in the IFBB, but also among the most sucessful as well, winning two figure titles and competing in 2 Figure Internationals and 3 Figure Olympias, placing no worse than sixth throughout her pro career, paving the way for shorter competitors to be successful in the bodybuilding world. Christine's platform will be Postpartum, as well as Alzheimer's during the month of November. That is a deep topic to her due to her father having it and having a couple of scary episodes. Thankfully he is currently okay. 

The 2022 pageant will be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on August 10-13. Because Christine will be competing in the Elite Ms. category. she will have an activewear round rather than a swimwear round. (We have a gut feeling Christine will WOW folks in that round...especially the way she WOW'd folks on the IFBB stage). If they do the pageant like they did earlier this year for the 2021 pageant, it will stream on Facebook. On behalf of FitGems Nation, we can't stress enough how proud we are of Christine for this amazing accomplishment and wish her best of luck as she represents Colorado as Ms. Elite Ms. Colorado Petite 2022 throughout the rest of 2021 and all of next year, and best of luck to her as she looks to become Elite Ms. Petite USA later on in 2022!

I have no clue how fundraisers are done in Petite USA, but we'll pass along the information as we get it, so we can all help support one of our own.

Follow Christine on the following social media platforms:

https://www.facebook.com/christinepompoino
https://instagram.com/christinepomponio

Follow Petite USA on the following platforms:

https://www.petiteusa.com
https://www.facebook.com/petiteusa
https://instagram.com/petiteusa

Photos are from Christine's social media accounts

Why We're Rooting for a Christine Pomponio Comeback Someday

Over the last few years, we have seen a lot of returns in the female muscle world: Oksana Grishina, Jenny Worth, Adela Garcia possibly in 2021 (it was aimed to be 2020 but she has put off the comeback to make sure she represents the fitness division the right way), Monica Brant made a comeback a few years ago (competing in the PCA and NABBA), and Yarishna Ayala became an IFBB Pro again a few years after leaving the sport to pursue different opportunities elsewhere. At the 2020 Arizona Pro, Melissa Teich returned to the IFBB stage after a four-year break and ended up winning the women's physique title. This year is the much-anticipated bthe return of the female Olympia event that started it all for the women: Ms. Olympia. In this industry these days, you just never say never. And based off what little we've seen of one of our number-one supporters, we would love to see Christine Pomponio, one of the first ladies of the figure division, make a comeback at some point. 

If we were to tell you how far apart these photos are, you wouldn't believe us. 
Credit to the original owners

Christine used to go by a slightly different name during her competition days, but things have changed in her life for reasons that we will not discuss here. But something that hasn't changed that much in her life is her dedication to living a healthy lifestyle, as evident in local commercials she does for Granite Depot in Denver. She last stepped on stage at the 2006 Figure Olympia, but you wouldn't know it by looking at her these days, as she seems like she would not be out of place at all in today's competiting world. In fact, she did a couple of photoshoots with Marc Thyssen back in 2010 and 2011 that made people wonder THEN if she was going to come back competing. Oh yeah...this was not too long after giving birth, a couple of years or so. She also did a few shoots here and there after giving twins and much like after giving birth the first time, she bounced back pretty quickly. 

If it were up to us, if she were to ever come out of retirement, we would love to see her make a return to the stage in late 2021 or early 2022. We say those time periods because from all the time we've known Christine, she is someone who prides herself in doing things right and never wanting to jump into anything without a solid gameplan. While figure posing in relatively easier that most, it STILL requires a lot of practice to nail every transisition, making sure every muscle fiber is flexed correctly during each pose to highly a complete physique. Christine was known for bringing a physique that was well-conditiioned (especially in the delts and quads) yet at the same time full in order to contend with the taller competitors. In fact, her competition resume (which included Top-6 Arnold and Olympia placings) helped paved the way for competitors of her height to achieve success in the figure division, which has historically favored medium-to-tall competitors. 

With big returns happening almost a yearly thing now, it would be great to see the figure division have one of their top first stars return for one final run, and based off how Christine looks these days, the only reason that Christine Pomponio will never step on stage again is because Christine Pomponio doesn't want to. But she has mentioned to me personally to "never say never". If Christine ever does return and it's anything similar to how others have returned to the stage in recent years, figure fans and those that compete in the figure division are in for a treat. 

She. Does. NOT. Age. At. All!

For more on Christine, check out her Facebook and Instagram pages: https://www.facebook.com/christinepomponio and https://www.instagram.com/christinepomponio. For anyone interested in working with Christine for commercial ads, photoshoots, print ads, and/or Covid safe appearances, etc., contact talent mgmt. Brett Myles at rarebeauty.tvmodels@gmail.com or Scott Dozier at toptiermodelproductions@gmail.com. If you want to read our blog about Christine from a couple of years, click here. 

Christine Pomponio-Pate: A Figure "First Lady"

Each division has something for everyone (women's bodybuilding, fitness, fitness, figure, bikini). We have said over and over that the figure divsion is the comic-book division, where the women look like they are ripped straight out of a comic book or modeled just like an action figure. When the figure division began in 2003, it gae women who had "fitness-division like" muscle yet not the fitness/gymnastic background a platform to showcase their physiques and not having to do a routine. While something thought it wouldn't last due to the lack of posing involved, it has continued to be a top division for the IFBB and NPC with big numbers turning in, with bikini being the only division with higher numbers. While most successful competitors range from 5"6 to about 5"10, there have been those who repsthe "shorties" and let their physique stand tall about others who had the height advantage. One such competitor was Christine Pomponio-Pate.

Standing at 5 foot one and one of the founding ladies of the figure division, Christine had quite the journey of coming to the IFBB. She competed in soccer for 10 years and began working out with weights during her days in high school. in 1994, and worked in a gym, when an near-tragic accident could have ended everything for her. Here are details of the incident from the Denver Post (https://www.denverpost.com/2006/09/16/willpower-can-get-you-big-results/):

The former soccer player passed out due to low blood sugar. Her car crossed the median and hit a truck head-on. Mechanical failure kept her seatbelt from being fastened, leaving nothing to prevent her from exiting through the windshield. She hit the steering wheel with her face, causing severe oral damage on the way out. She was semi-conscious the next two days. Six years of difficult recovery followed. 

Within those six years, she had 11 surguries to fix everything. Looking at her during her competitions days and now, you wouldn't think she has been through hell, but believe me, she has. And the fact that she has been able to accomplish so much since then has made her so grateful for everything she has in her life and why we are grateful, honored, and humbled to celebrate #CPPWEEK this past week.

Christine began back weight training as part of rehab. One thing let to another and she ended up competing at the Colorado State Fitness Championships, winning the overall fitness title right off the bat. The next step was competing at the National stage, competing at the NPC USAs in 1999 and NPC Nationals in 2000 before winning her IFBB Pro card in 2001 by winning her class at the NPC Team Universe. Christine saw herself as a backyard gymnast, meaning having strong mandatories but that's about it. She has entertaining routines yet they were basic at best. The IFBB Pro Figure division came in 2003 and Christine knew that was more for her. While she has struggles in the inargual year, faith came a-calling in 2004 where she placed 6th at the Califronia Pro with a completely revamped and jaw-dropping physique. It ended up not being a case of sheer luck as was runner-up to Davana Medina at the New York Pro and placed 6th in her first Figure Olympia. She would only get better going foward, including placing in the top six at her Figure International competitions (4th in 2005 and 6th in 2006) and winning the 2005 Tournament of Champions and 2006 Califonia Pro. Christine's career would end at the 2006 Figure Olympia with an amazing 4th place finish, even betting out then-Figure International Champion Mary Lado. During her time as a competitor, she graced several magazines, including FLEX, Muscle and Fitness, and IRONMAN, in addition to a few local publications. In addiiton to competiting, she did commercials for local businesses such as American Warehouse and Granite Depot. She still does local commercials for the Denver area.

2004 Figure Olympia...when the one-piece suit was still a thing, LOL.

While she did qualify for the 2007 Figure Olympia...life came a-calling again...a life inside of her. She gave birth to her first child Riley in December 27, 2007 and then to twins Brax Disel and Colt Sterling on October 27, 2014. After giving birth to Riley, withing MONTHS she looked like she didn't even had a child. She shot with Marc Thyssen for a couple of awesome photo gatherings: FitHeat 2010 and Fitness Supermodel Weekend 2011. Both times, if she were to have entered the Olympia, she would have easily been a top-three contender. That's how good she looked. She did a shoot with PictureGroove seven months after the birth of the twins, and wowed people again.

Don't take out word for how amazing of a woman Christine is, here are what some have said about Christine:

dallas3, FitGems Contributer: "Christine is the ultimate professional and would define class. Whether on stage with her grace and poise or doing commercials, Christine has always been a positive representative of the fitness industry"

Michael Buso, fan: "I’ve never met her (in person). But when she competed, she had a beautiful physique."

Alissa Carpio, IFBB Fitness Pro : "Always loved her!"

2006 Figure Olympia. Her last show...for now, anyways.

Despite not stepping on a competiion stage since 2006, she has entertained the idea of maybe doing another show once the time is right. And the way she looks these days, it wouldn't surprise us if one day she decides to one day step back on stage to show this generation of figure competitors how it's done. But no matter what, we feel she is one of the best figure competitors in IFBB history and a champion for the "short girls" who feel they can't hang with the taller competitors. Christine is proof-positive that whether on the stage, modeling, commercial acting, motherhood, and life in general, size DOES matter...on the inside.

For more on Christine, check out her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/christinepomponio.