1967 Mr. Olympia: Joe Weider and Sergio Oliva
The 1967 Mr. Olympia had a last-second reversal. Because only the winner was determined, speculation then and later focused on who was second. It turns out the man who was second was originally first, but the contest was re-judged behind the curtain away from the anxious audience. And the man who was originally second finished first. We know this because one of the judges wrote about it then, though it’s been nearly buried ever since. Let’s journey back to the Brooklyn Academy of Music on a drizzly September Saturday in the year of war protests, Bonnie and Clyde, and “Light My Fire” for the contest that flip-flopped at the very last moment, the 1967 Mr. Olympia.
1967 MR. OLYMPIA: PRELUDE
The Mr. Olympia in those first few years wasn’t yet the MR. OLYMPIA, regarded by all fans and competitors as the ultimate bodybuilding contest. Oh sure, it was marketed as such by its owner, Joe Weider, but one week after this, the third Mr. Olympia (with four American competitors), 3500 miles away in London, American Bill Pearl won the 16th NABBA Pro Mr. Universe (with 11 competitors from seven countries) and 20-year-old Arnold Schwarzenegger won the even older, amateur title. Many fans regarded Pearl’s Universe title as the ultimate. Was he the best bodybuilder in the world then? Arnold came to the IFBB the next year and made his Olympia debut in 1969. Bill Pearl never competed in the Mr. Olympia or any IFBB contest.
The Mr. Olympia then was just the final event in a fitness extravaganza. That included, in order: bodybuilder Rick Wayne singing a song; bodybuilder Ed Jubinville’s freaky muscle control act in which he contorted his body bizarrely; the Miss Americana figure contest (won by Frank Zane’s future wife, Christine Harris); the Mr. America (won by Don Howorth; Zane won the medium class); 41-year-old 1956 NABBA Pro Universe winner Jack Delinger guest-posing; hand-balancers David and Goliath; Chuck Sipes’ strongman routine, breaking chains and bending bars; the Mr. World (won by Rick Wayne); and an arm-wrestling championship. The sold-out crowd of 2500 in Brooklyn certainly got their money’s worth, even before the final event.
New Mr. America Don Howorth and new Mr. World Rick Wayne had both just earned the right to compete in that evening’s Mr. Olympia, but both declined. The 1967 Mr. Olympia featured three of the same four competitors at the year before: Sergio Oliva, Harold Poole, and Chuck Sipes. The key difference was the fourth competitor in 1966 was Larry Scott, who, after winning the first two Olympias, retired from the stage at the tender age of 27. So, there would be a new champ, Mr. O #2. The fourth competitor this time was 25-year-old Dave Draper, like Scott another transplant to Southern California whom the Weider press built up relentlessly as a bodybuilding beach boy. In fact, Draper had a major role in a “beach party” movie that very summer: Don’t Make Waves.
1967 MR. OLYMPIA: EYEWITNESS REPORTS
The contest report in IronMan magazine, written by Carl Richford (in purple below), and the one in Weider’s Muscle Builder, written by Dick Tyler (in gray below), who was also a judge, offered two eyewitness views of what occurred in the 1967 Mr. Olympia.
DAVE DRAPER
As Wayne and Howorth declined to enter, Dave Draper was first out. Dave, to his everlasting credit and although he had not been able to train properly due to his movie commitments and constant travel, entered and lost, and took his lumps like a man. Joe Weider who has pushed, shoved, elbowed, ballyhooed and promoted Dave along, wanted him to be a “guest poser,” but a cop-out is a cop-out no matter how you look at it. Dave was not up to his last year’s form, but the bitterness of his first defeat should make him more determined than ever to show up and win next year.
The posing light was turned on illuminating the empty dais that waited like a dish to be served. [Promoter and emcee] Bud Parker stepped to the microphone and said simply, “Dave Draper.” For the Olympia contest, special recorded music was allowed for the first time. I had brought along the music from the soundtrack of The Ten Commandments for Dave’s routine. His name had hardly been mentioned, the roar began. I started to wonder why I had brought along any music because no one could hear it anyway. “He’s immortal!” shouted one of the fans who was now standing in the aisle. While Dave looked like the colossus that he is, I felt that I had seen him a shade better on occasion. As he stepped off the stage the yelling was almost deafening. They wanted more but the modest Draper wouldn’t come back.
CHUCK SIPES
Next out was Chuck Sipes; here I must again stop a mo’ and collect my literary breath before going on. The improvement this man has made in the past year is truly amazing. The arms—over 20 if an inch—the incomparable forearms, the chest, abs, shoulders, even the tree-trunk thighs and huge calves made your eyes pop. Here was a real man, not a blond-bleached beauty, but surely what bodybuilding is meant to be, to show to others. Even his posing, traditionally Chuck’s sore point, was greatly improved. Now only thigh cuts and more back stand in the way of the very top of the bodybuilding heap. Chuck is but one step away, and if he improved in another year as he did in the past, he’ll be the very greatest in all ways, without controversy or detraction.
“Chuck Sipes!” yelled Parker over the noise. Chuck stepped upon the stage to the music from the movie Ben Hur. He had never looked better in his life. On top of this, his posing had improved and now he looked for all the world like the best physique of the evening—so far, that is.
SERGIO OLIVA
But…as great as [Sipes] was, next out was Sergio Oliva. Sergio had trained an entire year, harder than ever before, had developed deeply-etched abdominals and intercostals like never before, was bigger, better, more amazing and more out-of-this-world than ever. Some may object to him as “freakish,” but that’s because he’s so far ahead of the average bodybuilder. Sergio has the first perfect body structure in all ways for bodybuilding, and his amazing development and graceful posing show it at its best.
“Sergio Oliva!” yelled Bud. In all the time I have ever witnessed and written about these events, I have always been able to pull some appropriate words from the gray matter to fit the occasion. Well, I give up. The words to describe Oliva haven’t been invented yet. I may never again see such a display of muscle as long as I live. His musculature was an assault upon believability. At one time, he had size and shape but not much actual separation. Now things were different. In a year’s time, he had become the most phenomenal physical specimen I had ever seen. As he swung from pose to pose, the excitement became almost violent. Hardly anyone could believe what they were seeing.
HAROLD POOLE
Last out was Harold Poole. With amazing symmetry and deep determination, Harold’s type of body is admired by many. Poole, great as he is, had not shown the improvement the two others had in the past year, and while many of his loyal fans proclaimed him number one to them, others placed him third behind Sergio and Sipes.
“Harold Poole!” shouted Parker, but I doubt if anyone could hear as they shouted for more poses from Sergio. Poole walked slowly to the dais while the music from King of Kings played dramatically in the background. I have always regarded Harold as one of the two or three greatest bodybuilders ever to stand under the posing light. He didn’t let anyone down this evening. If he had ever had any weak point it was his biceps. Now, when he flexed them, they seemed to be one of his strongest assets. The audience went wild and when he went in to his famous “most muscular” pose, I thought everyone would come unglued.
FINAL DECISION: THE GREAT REVERSAL
Carl Richford in IronMan thought Sipes had the second best physique:
The decision, after much time and additional judging backstage with the three top men together, was for Sergio. An amazing physique but one much greater than last year and one that will have to improve in the next year again to stay ahead of Sipes. Full credit should go to Sergio Oliva for being the greatest in the world; Chuck Sipes for his amazing body and power and manliness…
But judge (and writer) Dick Tyler in Muscle Builder provided a unique inside perspective on what went down and how close Poole was to becoming the second Mr. Olympia:
Thus ended the Olympia contest—for the audience, but the job of the judges was just beginning. We went through the orchestra pit to the level under the stage for our balloting. I voted for Oliva, but to my surprise Poole pulled most of the votes. We argued and balloted and argued and balloted while the audience waited. [Weider writer/editor] Jon Twichell came down to see what we had decided. He was told that Poole was the winner. He nodded and started upstairs when someone suggested that we have just one more look at them all together. Twichell was literally a step away from Parker with the decision when he was caught. Except for a step and a voice, Poole would have been Mr. Olympia. The curtains were closed and the contestants mounted the platform backstage while the judges once again went about the task of trying to decide who was Mr. Olympia for 1967. We went into a side room and re-balloted with the promise that this was the final vote. This time Oliva emerged the winner in one of the closest contests I’ve ever seen.
Who was the “someone” who “suggested that we have just one more look at them all together”—the “voice” who halted Twichell from giving Harold Poole’s name to Parker? Joe Weider, the contest owner and muscle mogul, is the most likely suspect. It could also have been his brother, Ben, the IFBB president, after consultation with Joe. No one else would have had that much sway then over this contest. JoeWeider.com and, previously, IFBB.com also excerpted this Muscle Builder report, but, curiously, those websites left out all but the first and last sentences of the final paragraph above, and they lopped off the first two words of the final sentence. Effectively, they tried to erase the last second Poole-to-Oliva change from history. Hmm. It seems the Weider machine was okay with publishing how easily a certain “someone” could change a bodybuilding outcome way back in the ’60s, but later were uneasy acknowledging this.
But it happened in the Brooklyn Academy of Music on September 16, 1967, the night the second Mr. Olympia was, eventually, crowned.
1967 MR. OLYMPIA: POSTSCRIPT
Soon after the 1967 Mr. Olympia, Harold Poole (only 23) and Chuck Sipes were lured to compete in the WBBG Pro Mr. America, the new contest of a new organization in conflict with the Weider brothers’ IFBB. Poole won; Sipes was third. Poole won that same title again the next year. First Sipes and then Poole returned to the IFBB, but neither ever competed in the Mr. Olympia again. Dave Draper (only 25) also never again flexed in a Mr. Olympia. In fact, he barely competed again. Draper stayed off stages for three years before making a brief comeback in 1970, winning the IFBB Mr. World. Sergio Oliva, “The Myth,” won the Mr. Olympia again the next year, unopposed, and against Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1969. But Arnold beat him in another show and then the Olympia in 1970 and again at the Olympia in 1972. Oliva subsequently left the IFBB for rival organizations before making a comeback, in his 40s, at the 1984 and 1985 Mr. Olympias. Chuck Sipes died in 1993, Sergio Oliva in 2012, Harold Poole in 2014, and Dave Draper in 2021.
1967 MR. OLYMPIA RESULTS
September 16, 1967 / Brooklyn Academy of Music / New York City
1. Sergio Oliva ($1000)
Harold Poole
Chuck Sipes
Dave Draper
Note: Only the winner was determined and announced. This is the projected order, based on the above accounts.
