Hat-trick of top-three places for Berwickshire bodybuilder Scott McKenzie

The 53-year-old, of Gavinton, followed up a third place in the masters class at the National Amateur Body-Builders’ Association’s Mister and Miss Scotland competition in Glenrothes – a qualifier for the same organisation’s Mr Britain finals in Bradford in West Yorkshire on Saturday, June 1 – with a second and a third a week later, also in Fife.

Those placings were at International Bodybuilding and Fitness Association UK’s Mister and Miss Scotland show at Lochgelly. His second was in the over-50 class and his third in the category for competitors unfer 5ft 8in tall.

McKenzie, a plasterer by trade, was pleased with those placings, saying: “I’m pretty happy with them because I was up against the best guys in Scotland.

“The guy at the first show that I was third to, he went on to win Mister Scotland overall, so to stand next to somebody of that calibre and not look out of place is pretty good for a local lad.

“To me, though, trophies are an added bonus and getting compliments and enjoying the actual sport are what it’s about. You’ve got to enjoy it or there’s no point in doing it.

“I’ve been competing for 30-plus years and I still enjoy it.”

He’s also competing at another NABBA Mister Britain qualifier south of the border in Gateshead this Sunday.

McKenzie, winner of NABBA’s 2004 Mister Scotland novice title, trains every day to keep in shape for competitions, telling us: “It’s not like some other sports where you can go out and drink ten pints of lager a night and eat packets of crisps with them and you only have to train maybe once or twice a week then turn up on Saturday and play for your team.

“This sport that we do, you live, breathe and eat it literally 24/7 for months on end to get ready for shows.

“You can’t go off and have a night out on the drink and miss training afterwards because you feel crap.

“You’ve got to be at the top of your game day-in, day out.”