Page 183 - Muscle & Fitness (December 2019)

Nearly 30 years since

his final win, eight-
time Mr. Olympia

Lee Haney admits

he nearly gave it up

after seven.

B Y J E F F T O M K O

WHEN LEE HANEY LIFTED
THE SANDOW trophy for the
eighth and final time at Orlan-
do’s Walt Disney World Dolphin
Hotel in 1991, the champion had
one feeling going through his
chiseled body. The time to finally

exhale had come.
No longer did Olympia’s win-
ningest champion have to worry
about having to be on point at all
times, as the nearly decade-long
onslaught of hungry opponents
gunning for his crown had come
to a close. It was finally time to
C O U RT E S Y O F W E I D E R H E A LT H & F I T N E S S ( 2 ) ; C H R I S L U N D
call it quits.
“People came and asked, ‘Lee,
are you coming back?’ I said,
‘No!’ ” Haney recalls, nearly 30
years since his Olympia win in
Florida. “I was glad I could finally
breathe, because these guys
were the best of the best, and
any one of them could hand you
your lunch on any given day.”
Bodybuilding’s greatest era
was filled with a list of legends

who failed to call themselves Mr.
Olympia—from Lee Labrada (“I
used to call him ‘Flea’ Labrada