For Lin Shao-hua (林少華), the strenuous physical training over the last two months all became worthwhile when he was named first runner-up in the “Mister Physique” category in the annual 2008 Manhunt International last Monday.
Lin, a 25 year-old gym instructor from the Atayal tribe, was the third Taiwanese man to win a prestigious award at an international male beauty contest.
Lin said yesterday that when contenders from other countries first saw him, they often mistook him as Latin American because of his sculpted muscles and tanned skin.
PHOTO: HSIEH WEN-HUA, TAIPEI TIMES
“When I said I am from Taiwan, they often found it surprising,” Lin said, “because many foreigners still have the stereotype that Taiwanese male models are often tall, skinny and pale.”
Two months prior to the competition, Lin trained for three hours each day and maintained a strict high-protein low carbohydrate diet. To burn the extra fat off his body, Lin said he often did his jogging routine wearing heavy jackets and long pants so he would “sweat it out.”
Lin said he was able to shed 10kg using his self-designed regimen.
Manhunt International is the largest male-model beauty pageant in the world. The competition is made up of two phases. An online contest was held for voting on all contenders.
The top 15 winners from the online competition were then eligible to participate in the on-stage competition.
Lin did not get any votes at first, but won more than 23,900 votes and placed seventh after the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) reported on his endeavor to win the competition.
A senior at Yuan Ze University, Hsu Poh-hsiang (�?�), won the “best newcomer and best traditional costume” award in last year’s International Man Competition, and Hung Chi-feng (洪啟峰) of the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, clinched the “Most Popular” award in the 2008 Mr. Universe Model competition.
Hsu, however, refused to accept his award because organizers tried to force him to participate as “Mr. China” instead of “Mr. Republic of China.”
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