Victor Martinez plans to compete at the 2008 Olympia

by Allan Donnelly

May 17, 2008

FLEXONLINE.COM

Despite several reports to the contrary, all signs are pointing to Victor Martinez competing in the 2008 Mr. Olympia on September 27-28 at the Orleans Arena.

Martinez tore his left patellar tendon in mid-January while performing a set of warm-up lunges while preparing for the Arnold Classic. He underwent surgery on January 18, leaving his participation in the 2008 Olympia in serious jeopardy. Most have assumed that Martinez will not be able to recover in time in order to resume training for competition.

However, this week, Martinez mailed in his signed Olympia contract, which can only mean one thing – the door is wide open for the No. 2 bodybuilder in the world to once again challenge Jay Cutler– and the vastly improved Dexter Jackson – for top honors at the Olympia.

But that’s not all. FLEX Senior Writer Julian Schmidt recently caught up with Martinez and raised the question of whether or not Martinez would be ready to compete at the 2008. Here’s what Martinez had to say:

“It’s looking good that I will be in the Mr. Olympia,” Martinez said. “I lost a little bit of size in my legs, but not too much. I’ve been training everything else as always, so I will definitely be ready, especially for Jay Cutler. I assure you I will be competitive with him. I’m always competitive with Jay.”

What does it all mean? Taken by itself, we’d look at Martinez’s recent quote to be wishful thinking. But the fact that there’s a signed contract, well, we’re inclined to believe we’ll be seeing Vic onstage in late September.