Grant muscles in on pro status

DONNA PAGET/Waikato Times

WHAT A PRO: Grant Pieterse has just become the youngest bodybuilder to be awarded pro status.

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Grant Pieterse isn't hard to spot in the gym. At 114 kilograms and with barely a drop of fat on him, he is an impressive figure.

But a very firm handshake, partnered with a beaming smile, shows this 23-year-old isn't as scary as you first think. And if that smile isn't enough to calm your nerves, the cute pink Supre bag that he keeps his gym gear in will be.

Pieterse, New Zealand and Australasian body building champion, recently became one of the youngest bodybuilders ever to be offered his professional card, making him him one of just three active professionals in New Zealand. "It's the same as a young guy becoming an All Black. All they want to do is get to the top of their sport and that's the same with me. It means everything to me."

His first professional event is in Melbourne at the International Federation of Body Building Australian Grand Prix in March. As the competition draws nearer, Pieterse's training becomes more demanding.

A strict sleeping, eating and exercise regime will include 12 gruelling weights sessions and 84 meals each week.

By show time, Pieterse will have dropped from 114kg to 102kg and his body fat now at 7.5 per cent will be down to about 2.5-3 per cent.

He is not worried by the fact that New Zealand is thousands of kilometres away from the sport's power base in the US. "What does it matter? The only way you get to the top is by working hard and wanting it and no one can help you with that," a clearly motivated Pieterse says.

He claims the sport isn't taken seriously by national sport funding organisation Sparc but that makes him work even harder. A move to the States to chase sponsorship is tempting, but he and fiance Sesa Tomuli run the Xtreme Nutrition Hamilton store and he wants to stay in New Zealand as long as possible. "But I'm not going to stay here forever if I can't get any help."

He hopes that if he reaches his goal of winning the sport's biggest prize, Mr Olympia claimed by Arnold Schwarzenegger seven times it might make people sit up and take notice of the sport and, in the process, increase the help available for young body building competitors.

Pieterse doesn't mind being asked about drug use in the sport and says all the tests he has undertaken have come back clean.

- © Fairfax NZ News