First bodybuilding contest

The first modern bodybuilding contest was "The Great Competition", held at the Royal Albert Hall in London, UK, on 14 September 1901. The principal organizer and promoter of this event was world-famous strongman Eugen Sandow (Germany), who also acted as one of the judges. The winner was an athlete from Nottingham, UK, called William Murray, who walked away with a prize of £1,050 (equal to around £107,000/$136,000 in 2024).

Eugen Sandow had risen to fame in the late 19th century. He initially performed as a conventional strongman (with an act focused on feats of strength), but later, at the urging of his manager Florenz Zeigfeld Jr, he shifted to put more emphasis on aesthetics and posing. He toured across Europe and North America in the 1890s, becoming a household name around the world. By the turn of the century, he was well-known enough to have built a business empire around "physical culture", that promoted Sandow's weight training methods through magazines, books and franchised gyms.

The idea of a bodybuilding contest was not a new one, but previous events had all been small in scale and restricted to a few personally invited participants. The Great Competition, by contrast, was held in one of the largest indoor venues in Britain and open to anyone. The qualification process started in 1898 when prospective competitors were invited to send photographs and vital statistics to Sandow's office in London for judgement. The people that were shortlisted from that phase then competed in regional qualification events.

The contest itself was adjudicated by a panel of celebrity judges that comprised Sandow, author (and physical culture enthusiast) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and classical sculptor Sir Charles Lawes. Around 15,000 people attended the event, with many more were reportedly turned away at the doors.

The winner, William Murray, was an all-round athlete who competed in amateur track events and cycle races, while also playing professional football for Notts County FC. It can be assumed from the fact that he weighed in at a muscular 189 lb (85 kg) while only standing 5 ft 8 in tall (172 cm), that he was also an acolyte of Sandow's weight-training methods.

Like all the competitors, he posed in a Leopard-skin loincloth and tights while the judges made notes. He was awarded a gold statuette of Sandow and a cash prize, and used the notoriety he had gained to tour as a strongman.